- I'm Julian O'Shea,
and I'm in Fitzroy Garden in Melbourne,
and I'm sitting in the shade of this.
This is an araucaria bunya pine.
Now, I don't know a lot about trees,
I only knew that because I looked it up on this,
Urban Forest Visual,
a map of every single tree in the City of Melbourne.
Now, this map is pretty clever,
but there's one feature about it that makes it distinct,
this button right here that says Email the Tree.
If I press it,
I can email this very tree,
and I'm gonna show you why that is
and what happens when you press that button.
So to explain this map and the surprising story behind it,
I thought I'd go directly to the source.
This is Juliana Leslie who works in the Urban Forest team.
- So the Urban Forest Visual was first published in 2013,
about a year after our Urban Forest Strategy was endorsed,
represents all of our trees on a map.
So all of our trees have asset numbers,
we use those numbers internally.
But what we did was we took that data set
and we published it,
and you can go onto the map
and have a little scroll around, Select a Tree,
it'll give you the tree species as well as its age class,
and there's also a little option to email the tree.
The reason we originally created the map was
so that people could report issues with trees
a little bit more easily or ask us questions.
It's a bit of an education tool as well.
- [Julian] Now, this was the whole story.
It would be an interesting use of open data
and citizen engagement,
but this is where the story takes a beautiful turn.
- But then just completely organically
through no nudging on how
and the community started sending love letters to the trees.
Some people refer to them as like a virtual tree hug,
which is quite nice.
Yeah, and we just started receiving
these love letters from all over the world.
From locals, but also for people all over the world
who just go on the map and are having a little explore
and they'll just email a tree.
It's great.
- [Julian] That's right, hundreds of love letters to trees,
sharing stories,
some quirky and some heartfelt.
Here's just a sample.
Dear Algerian oak,
thank you for giving us oxygen.
Thank you for being so pretty.
Hello, Mr. Willow Leaf Peppermint,
or should I say Mrs. Willow Leaf Peppermint?
Do trees have genders?
I hope you've had some nice sun today.
Hi tree, are you worried about
being effected by the great debt crisis?
Should Greece be allowed to stay in the European union?
Regards, Troy.
Now, being such a lovely story,
it's no surprise that the media shared it widely,
and this is how I came across it.
But there are a few things these articles didn't cover.
Most importantly,
what happens after you press send,
and do the trees ever right back?
Now, in my introduction before,
I think I undersold Juliana's role,
'cause there's one other thing she does
as part of this project.
- Yeah, so I keep
oversight of the inbox that they come into
then I actually respond to the emails as the tree.
Believe it or not, it's part of my job
to respond as a tree to these people.
Yeah, it's quite cute.
- [Julian] Yes, Juliana is the person
at the heart of this program,
and this gives her some direct insight
into the personal correspondence
between people and their favorite tree.
- Quite often, we'll have people tell me,
well, not me, they'll tell the tree,
my partner and I met underneath you
and now we got engaged underneath you.
I think one of my favorite was a young boy from America,
and he sent me a lot of details about
his school life and everything he was doing and then
I responded as the tree.
And the mum got back in contact with me
and told me that he was so happy
with the outcome, that he took it to show and tell,
and then the school ended up
planting the same species of tree in their garden,
which is so cute.
- [Julian] So what does it take
to communicate on behalf of nature?
- I don't dare to think that I know the wisdom of a tree.
So I just keep it simple.
If a kid sends me a tree joke, I'll send a tree joke back,
I'll use a lot of tree puns.
I keep it light because I think
if we only knew what a tree actually thought,
I'm sure they'd be very wise and I'm not up to that.
- [Julian] So there are over 70,000 trees on the map,
but the council is planting 3000 per year more
with the goal of getting to 40% canopy cover of the city
by 2040.
So I wanted to know,
was there any one tree that was the most popular?
- The most popular tree is a golden elm on Punt Road.
It's been there for a very long time
and it's very beautiful.
Interestingly, we actually got the person
whose grandma, I believe it was
planted the tree many years ago,
and they're so happy that it's still being managed
and it's still thriving.
So that was really lovely.
- Armed with this information,
I wanted to find and see
Melbourne's most popular tree for myself.
So I headed across during rush hour to have a look.
(bright music)
So I made it down here to check out
the most emailed tree in Melbourne.
Now, there might be a lot of background noise
'cause it's rush hour at the moment
and Hoddle Street and Alexandra Parade are an absolute mess.
Now, it is a huge tree,
it's a beautiful tree,
I can see why people like it,
that slow drive, pushup Hoddle Street, Punt Road
and then being able to see this.
And it's a majestical tree,
it's listed as a tree of state significance
by the National Trust and is at least 70 years old.
Planted in 1938,
but its exact age isn't known
as it might've been planted as a sapling or a mature tree.
And while I'm here,
here's some emails that this tree has received.
Dear tree,
if you're that big round beautiful low-hanging tree,
I think you are my favorite tree.
Such beauty on an ugly road, keep up the good work.
You're my favorite tree,
even when you make me stoop over during my morning run
when you grow too big.
Love M.
I used to think you were the magic faraway tree
when I was a child.
Now, that I'm an adult,
I still look forward to seeing you
as I come around the bend
after a tedious crawl down Hoddle Street.
Look, it's an impressive tree,
they've named the reserve after it.
There's a couple of benches here that you can sit
and take a bit of a quiet spot
in what is not a quiet place.
Yeah, a river is just there and the bridge that goes over.
This is what you see, this massive tree.
So this tree is well loved and contacted,
but I do you want to know whether the Melbourne Council
approve of this type of correspondence
and whether they encourage further treemails?
- Oh, absolutely.
Yes, please, the more the merrier.
- Thanks for watching.
This was a really lovely video to put together.
If you enjoyed it,
do subscribe, leave a comment or email this tree,
it's tree number 1040601.
I'm Julian O'Shea, take care.
(calm music)