to 64 - Palmerston North City Council

Nature in the CityVisionTo enhance, create andsustain green infrastructurein the city centreBackgroundIn a city environment trees and vegetation provide animportant visual and ecological resource, moderating climate,creating shade and giving scale to mediate between humanand built environments. Palmerston North’s city centre benefitsfrom existing vegetation and nature within The Square, thestreets and surrounding open spaces/reserves. Retaining,enhancing and adding to this green infrastructure has anumber of benefits.A Biodiversity Strategy is being developed in 2013 that willincrease planting around the city, continue and increase pestcontrol, actively promote biodiversity, and protect and restorethe city’s terrestrial and aquatic biodiversity.The CCF provides a useful vehicle to deliver these aims withinthe city centre. It also indicates the need to establish a citycentre wide Vegetation Framework 7 that considers appropriatespecies in appropriate places, addressing the debate aroundnative vs. non-native vegetation species within the city centre,maintenance, and how vegetation can help inform peopleabout landscape and environmental issues and heritage.A Biodiversity Strategy initiative will cover the same issues on acitywide scale. The Strategy will engage with Rangitāne toconfirm previous imperatives and identify new ones,particularly in regards to increasing the use of indigenousvegetation. Indigenous species in a central city context relateto the recognition of the pre-European landscape and culturalvalues associated with the area, as well as the broader contextof biodiversity enhancement and restoration.7The vegetation framework will be a chapter of the Technical Manualwhich is outlined in more detail in the section ‘Making It Happen’The Square29DRAFT CCF FOR PALMERSTON NORTH key directions [ kd3 nature in the city ]