Tree felling occurred in Miller Street, O'Connor this week as well.
The original street planting was E. blakeleyi, which is
indigenous to this location, and some had grown into fine specimens.
To the uninitiated this looks like a rather untidy tree and the results
of insect attack are often seen as a sign that the trees are sickly
should be removed. Fifteen trees were felled between David Street and
Macarthur Avenue, including the magnificent specimens on the
David/Miller Street intersection. All of these were significant trees
on a landscape scale.
I was rude enough to examine some of the felled timber that had been
stacked up and all were perfectly healthy trees. The literature we
received informed us that the trees were unsafe for the sort of reasons
that Robin Hide has already alluded to but significantly also included
'poor condition due to insect attack'. In my opinion this is not a
valid reason to fell a mature E. blakeleyi that has endured
this as part of its annual cycle for over 50 years! Ironically, some
of the smaller trees that are in poorer condition have been left
standing. There was a clear pattern of felling the largest trees and
those that overhung bus stops.
It is proposed that these E. blakeleyi will be replaced with E.
mannifera. There is considerable irony in this because the
'sickly' E. blakeleyi have never dropped so much as a branch
while healthy E. mannifera are renowned for dropping
dangerously large limbs without any warning on windless days. Of the
local eucalypt street plantings, the probability of branch fall
is as follows: E. cinerea > E. mannifera > E.
polyanthemos > E. blakeleyi. So the question arises
"why replace large-growing branch-dropping trees with even worse
large-growing branch-dropping trees?"
It concerns me that there is money to be made from this nonsensical
felling and replanting process. How much distance is there between the
those that decide where to chop and those that receive income from the
process? The ultra cynical might suggest that the choice of planting E.
mannifera provides an on-going income stream for the tree loppers
because they are so prone to dropping large limbs in an unpredictable
fashion!!
If we are so concerned with public safety why do we persist in allowing
cars driven by people on our streets?
Milburn
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