After trees along Sydney\u2019s Brighton-Le-Sands beach were hacked down and poisoned by unknown hands in January to open up the view, the local government responded in kind.<\/p>\n
Bayside council, home to the industrial precinct around Port Botany, dropped a battered metal shipping container in front of the newly created view, and commissioned a local artist to decorate it with a mural of fairy wrens and native flora. It will remain there until replacement trees have grown, says mayor Edward McDougall.<\/p>\n
Shipping containers are just one way Australian councils are responding to illegal tree removals on public land to improve views or boost house prices. Some hang banners or \u201cshame signs\u201d to block views, or spray-paint \u201cPOISONED\u201d on the trunks of vandalised trees.<\/p>\n
These attempts to fight illegal tree destruction \u2013 especially in Sydney suburbs with harbour views \u2013 are sometimes called \u201ctree wars\u201d. After a public consultation, the NSW government is expected to introduce new legislation, including bigger fines, later this year.<\/p>\n
Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n Some councils and advocates have called for jail time for serious offences, although others say the emphasis should be on prevention, calling on state and federal governments to give more help to local councils and centralise data in the face of growing threats to Sydney\u2019s urban tree canopy.<\/p>\n The problem<\/p>\n Most Sydney suburbs with water views have some recent history of public tree vandalism. Bayside council commissioned the same artist to paint several shipping containers further along the foreshore when trees were cut down in 2021.<\/p>\n In recent years, vandalised trees have made local news from Hunters Hill and Mosman to Waverley and Woollahra. Others have made international headlines. In Longueville on the lower north shore, Lane Cove council installed a seven-metre long banner<\/a> after about 300 trees, including mature eucalypts, banksia and casuarina, were destroyed in November 2023.<\/p>\n Two years later, the banner is still there and the council is about to lodge legal action against the alleged perpetrator. Mayor Merri Southwood says the process is \u201creally difficult\u201d, with councils themselves required to meet the burden of proof.<\/p>\n After trees were illegally removed on the Brighton-Le-Sands foreshore earlier this year, the local council decided to block any alleged tree vandals\u2019 view with a shipping container that has its own \u2018view\u2019. Photograph: Bayside council<\/p>\n \u201c[They] are ill-equipped to undertake this onerous and costly process, and evidence is difficult to gather.\u201d<\/p>\n It proved too challenging in Castle Cove, which also erected a banner after more than 250 trees<\/a> were illegally killed or vandalised in an acre of protected bushland in August 2023. Willoughby mayor Tanya Taylor says the council could not meet the burden of proof, although it did identify potential suspects.<\/p>\n Prof Sebastian Pfautsch, an expert in urban heat at Western Sydney University, published a microclimate report in July for the council. He says the cleared area is now as much as three degrees hotter during the day, but cooler at night, affecting food networks, and insect, bird and marsupial habitats.<\/p>\n In Queensland, the Sunshine Coast and Noosa councils have erected signs blocking views after native trees were illegally cleared along beach foreshores in 2023.<\/p>\n In South Australia, Burnside council put up several banners and signs after about 50 native trees were destroyed in a nature reserve in eastern Adelaide in 2023.<\/p>\n Clearing trees to improve water views might be less common in Melbourne, but public tree vandalism is not. In late 2024, vandals ripped out or cut down nearly 200 young trees and shrubs in parks in Glen Eira in the south-east.<\/p>\n Burnside council erected this sign after trees were illegally cleared in Auldana in eastern Adelaide in 2023. Photograph: Burnside councilThe law<\/p>\n In NSW, councils can issue on-the-spot fines for illegal tree removals of $3,000 for individuals and $9,000 for businesses if they prove culpability, although serious offences prosecuted in the courts can face an individual penalty up to $1m.<\/p>\n But in local government areas such as Mosman on Sydney\u2019s north shore, illegally removing trees to create a view or for a development can add significantly more value to a property than the cost of a fine, says Mosman mayor Ann Marie Kimber.<\/p>\n And, it\u2019s hard to identify the perpetrators. Last year, holes were drilled into the trunks of nine historic fig trees on Balmoral beach, leading to fears they had been poisoned. The trees were saved, but it wasn\u2019t clear who would have benefitted from their removal.<\/p>\n Submissions to the NSW department of planning\u2019s public consultation on illegal tree clearing closed in June. The government has proposed doubling on-the-spot fines, although some say this does not go far enough.<\/p>\n Trees are poisoned, slashed, drilled with holes and cut down illegally to make way for coastal views. Photograph: Willoughby council<\/p>\n Jeff Angel, director of the Total Environment Centre, says he has watched state governments make many unsuccessful attempts to fix the problem through \u201csmall scale fines\u201d.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Breaking News Australia<\/p>\n Get the most important news as it breaks<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cFrankly, the only thing that is going to have an impact is a system of fines that are equivalent or more to the improvement of the property value.\u201d<\/p>\n Lane Cove council\u2019s submission called for each tree removed to be treated as a separate offence. It is one of the many councils and tree advocates who told Guardian Australia they supported jail time for serious offences.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for the department of planning would not say whether jail terms would be part of a policy announcement, although the department has previously said it was considering it.<\/p>\n A national solution?<\/p>\n Local governments are used to dealing with neighbours\u2019 disputes about trees. Woollahra mayor Sarah Dixson, for example, has an email folder in her inbox dedicated to them and she says some trees \u201chave their own special sub-folder\u201d.<\/p>\n But she and the other Sydney mayors as well as Glen Eira and Burnside councils, are calling for greater support from state and federal governments to prevent illegal tree removal. \u201cIt\u2019s been happening more and more,\u201d says Dixson.<\/p>\n Her council has hung banners before, including when fig trees were poisoned in Darling Point in 2023, and signs have been erected at the site of tree removals along the Hermitage Foreshore track in Vaucluse, which is managed by NSW parks and wildlife. But Dixson thinks banners are \u201ca visual pollutant\u201d.<\/p>\n There are calls for the creation of a register of illegal tree removals as part of a national strategy to address the \u2018almost intractable\u2019 problem of tree vandalism. Photograph: Willoughby council<\/p>\n \u201cI know that that\u2019s sort of the point,\u201d she says. \u201cThe problem with that is that it effects absolutely everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n Woollahra has recently joined other Sydney councils in employing a tree enforcement officer. Prof Pfautsch says local governments should be financially supported to employ more officers to enforce guidelines and investigate breaches.<\/p>\n \u201cOne person cannot deal with the amount of work that is necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n There are also calls for better data collection. David Eldridge, a professor of ecology at UNSW, says a national register of illegal tree removals should be part of any strategy to address the \u201calmost intractable\u201d problem of tree vandalism.<\/p>\n Jess Abrahams, national nature campaigner at the Australian Conservation Foundation, says Australia is \u201cpoorly lacking\u201d when it comes to a national strategy to maintain native vegetation, particularly urban trees, which are as important for humans as for animals.<\/p>\n