24-6-05

Right of Reply to Southern Courier Letters to the Editor over Clovelly Tree Replacements

The first letter is needlessly antagonistic to Council’s bush regeneration initiatives.

I do not "think the public are stupid", rather I think that the thinking public does not automatically associate an over abundance of noxious weeds towered over by collapsing tee trees with sound remnant bush management.

I performed civil disobedience actions at the Franklyn River and Daintree Rainforest blockades in the early 1980’s. But that does not make me the sort of troglodyte greenie who sees an automatic virtue in refusing to make good a council reserve that has been allowed to degenerate through past inappropriate plantings followed by years of neglect.

Where on earth is the ecological virtue in permitting infestations of morning glory and other creepers and noxious weed species? Why preserve trees that are predominantly Tea trees and Banksias which have died or failed and which now constitute a safety issue? Does the writer of the letter actually think that Tea Trees are indigenous to that site?

I am the sort of greenie who sees an advantage in removing all dead, dying, noxious specties and weeds and recycling all wood chip is being recycled back onto the embankment. I am also the type of tree hugger who gets excited about the chance to put in 250 indigenous shrubs and trees.

I don’t believe in half hearted environmental approaches. If you are going to fix something then you might as well do a comprehensive job of it. Further more, if an old political enemy of mine, the proprietor of the Clovelly Hotel, wants to give me the money to do it a lot quicker than Council originally intended to do it, then so what?

I answer the first writer’s questions as follows.

1. Council relied on its professional qualified officers to go ahead with the program.
2. I visited the site. Many had died, were unsafe and did constitute a fire hazard.
3. Council always intended to do the works at some time. The donation from the Clovelly Hotel merely allowed the works to be expedited.
4. Council’s professional qualified officers would have had responsibility for supervising the site.
5. As noted above, the works were able to be expedited at this time because of the unplanned for donation from the Clovelly Hotel proprietor.
6. No, Council does not have different rules for developers and residents. Any donation of funds from the writer for landscaping works on land adjacent to his property would have to be assessed for its suitability by Council’s qualified and professional officers. Further, Council has not committed tree vandalism but has removed identified noxious weeds and other dying and degenerating flora for the benefit of the community.

The second letter unfairly suggests that Council only performed the regeneration work because of the Clovelly Hotel’s donation. But Council has merely taken advantage of the available money to expedite an already planned project.

I accept that the owner of the Clovelly Hotel may well have been astute enough to realise that his units would sell better if the adjacent land was cleaned of degenerated Tea Trees and noxious weed infestations. And true, this may mean that ocean views will have improved in the intrim, but regrowth will occur over time.

I make the ironic point that there will come a time when the unit’s new occupiers call for the removal of the replacement indigenous trees because they too have started to block views. But its going to be a lot easier to resist such calls if Council is protecting indigenous tree species rather than dying and collapsing Tea Trees.

I reply to sarcasm of the writer by stating that the Greens do not equate inertia with ecological conservation.

Murray Matson

(The Greens)

Mayor Randwick City Council