The TREENET Avenues of Honour Project 1915-2015

The TREENET Avenues of Honour 1915-2015 project is a national initiative to honour, with a tree, the memory of every individual who made the supreme sacrifice during war. The Avenue of Honour has been an enduring and popular form of public commemoration of military service in Australia. More than any other nation, Australians have chosen to recognise service and sacrifice through community plantings of memorial Avenues of Honour. The earliest recorded Avenues of Honour were created in response to AustraliaRSQUOs participation in the Boer War, but the majority were established during and after World War I. The project was designed to document, preserve and reinstate the original Avenues of Honour and to establish new Avenues of Honour, prior to the commemoration of the centenary of the beginning of World War I and continuing through to November 11, 2018. The Project was launched at the Fifth National TREENET Symposium in 2004. A nationwide survey was initiated, which subsequently identified 567 Avenues of Honour across Australia, most of which remained in some form, although some were depleted or in poor condition. These avenues and the trees that comprise them are typically on public land managed by Local Councils. A particular goal of the project for the ANZAC Centenary is to ensure that each of those Australians who died in war serving their country is recognised with a thriving living memorial that is known, recognised and discoverable by their descendants, relatives and by local communities.