A property developer based in Sydney, Australia, was recently fined 3,000 Australian dollars ($2,014 USD) by the local city council after destroying an 80-year-old oak tree, ABC reported. After appealing the fine in court, they lost and were fined an additional AU$45,000 ($30,220 USD).
While working on a project in Revesby, a suburb of the Canterbury-Bankstown region of Sydney, the developer began excavation work in the vicinity of a legally protected English oak tree without the required supervision of a certified arborist. Unsurprisingly, that did not go well, and they damaged the structural integrity of the tree, which then had to be cut down.
After being hit with the initial fine, the developer appealed but also declined to show up for the appeal hearing. None of this was to the liking of the magistrate who ruled on the case, saying that the developer was "well versed in the legal ways to deal with this situation" and adding, "Cost cutting can be the only reason behind the actions."
"Council takes environmental enforcement seriously and we will not tolerate those who want to cut corners," a City of Canterbury Bankstown spokesperson said. "May this act as a warning that if you are doing the wrong thing, you will be caught and you will be fined."
All over the world — but especially, seemingly, in Australia, for some reason — property developers and landowners illegally and recklessly cut down trees in order to bend their properties to their whims. In this case, the developer was hit with fines, but in many cases, the offenders get away unscathed.
In New South Wales, officials have been investigating a case where four protected 100-year-old trees were felled to enhance residents' coastal views. A similar but much larger case is also being investigated near Sydney, where wealthy residents cut down over 500 trees to give themselves an unimpeded view of the ocean.
In all of these cases, the people cutting down the trees displayed an incredibly short-sighted view of their relationship to nature, destroying it in order to manipulate the landscape to better see the specific parts they want to see. Hopefully, Australian officials continue to enforce the law around protected trees and can prevent future such cases.
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