Pomp, Pageantry, and the Illusion of Arboreal Protection

Democracy has found its way into the botanical world, and the public has spoken. A 167-year-old ginkgo biloba standing in the Geelong Botanic Gardens has been crowned Victoria’s Tree of the Year for 2026. The 20-metre giant captured 27 percent of the 4,435 votes cast in the annual competition run by the National Trust of Australia (Victoria). It comfortably edged out a smooth bark apple myrtle in Prahran and a myrtle beech in Apollo Bay to secure top honours, aided by persistent social media campaigning from Greater Geelong council staff.

The winning specimen carries a rich narrative. Planted in 1859, barely two decades after Geelong was formally established, its seeds reportedly arrived from China courtesy of a visiting ship captain. Over the decades, the female tree developed into the largest ginkgo in the state, forming distinctive stalactite-like trunk growths typical of ancient specimens, alongside its famously foul-smelling fruit. Ginkgos as a species date back more than 160 million years to the Jurassic period, surviving wild near-extinction and even the 1945 atomic bomb in Hiroshima. In modern Geelong, its function is somewhat more domestic, acting as the primary backdrop for local wedding photos.

To qualify for the annual competition, which was established in 2016, a tree must first be listed on the National Trust’s register of 2,500 culturally, historically, or scientifically significant Victorian specimens. This year, a panel of twelve arboriculturists and experts winnowed down more than 40 public entries to nine finalists. Yet beneath the lighthearted civic polling lies an uncomfortable reality regarding Victorian urban planning.

The National Trust uses the awards to highlight the severe lack of legal safeguards for mature trees. In the inner Melbourne municipality of Stonnington alone, local framework data revealed that more than 17.9 hectares of tree canopy were erased from private properties over a single decade. Recent state government regulations introducing uniform canopy rules remain remarkably weak, leaving broad scope for developers to fell mature trees without a permit.

As National Trust executive Justin Buckley observed, significant trees lack the statutory status routinely granted to historic buildings, leaving them vulnerable to population growth and development pressures. Landlords and councils often operate under the convenient delusion that cutting down a century-old giant can be rectified by planting a sapling elsewhere. Celebrating a beloved ginkgo generates warm publicity for Geelong, but without genuine statutory enforcement that privileges retention over demolition, Victoria's green infrastructure will continue to be chopped away.

Written by Andreas Hofer andreas.hofer@alpineweekly.com