In Australia, an epidemic of tree vandalism is on the rise in the Sydney area, the BBC reported. The likely culprits: wealthy homeowners who want to give themselves better views of the water.
According to the BBC, 265 trees were cleared from Castle Cove last July, and around 300 more were cut down in the neighboring town of Longueville four months later.
Buying a multimillion-dollar beachside mansion and desiring nice views is one thing. Endeavoring to create those views for yourself by illegally poisoning, drilling, and chainsawing hundred-year-old trees on which the local ecosystem relies is quite another. Unfortunately, that is apparently exactly what wealthy suburbanites in the area have been doing, much to the dismay of the more reasonable local residents.
"It's selfishness and greed; there's no other way to describe it," John Moratelli, president of the local Willoughby Environmental Protection Association, told the BBC. "It's just the worst of human nature really."
Although councils in the state of New South Wales have the authority to levy fines against people who illegally remove trees, so far they have found it too difficult to build cases against the culprits — and even if they did, critics say that the fines up to 3,000 Australian dollars ($1,955) for individuals would be easily shrugged off by the millionaires responsible for the damage.
There are exceptions. One wealthy resident of Queensland, Australia, who cleared 19,000 square meters of land to build a driveway after being warned not to was fined 145,000 Australian dollars ($95,481). But he took so few pains to hide his actions that building a case against him proved easy.
Where the tree vandalism in the Sydney area is concerned, officials have had a much more difficult time.
Unfortunately, as with so many issues facing our planet and the environment, this seems to be a case of people with too much money to face consequences and who are thinking only of their own interests and disregarding the needs and wishes of others.
To combat the problem, local residents are calling for the laws to be changed, allowing for higher fines and even potential jail time for tree vandals. But they aren't holding their breath.
"I wouldn't say [I'm] optimistic, necessarily. I'd like to think that they would realize that there is a problem and look at it," one resident told the BBC.
In the meantime, residents have started a TreeWatch patrol to chase off vandals — a nice example of how direct action can be effective when the government refuses or is unable to step in.
Some scientists and companies are also taking strides to reforest parts of Brazil and the Democratic Republic of the Congo that have been blighted by deforestation. If we all work together to protect our shared environment, we can grow a positive future where all life can thrive.
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