Published on Friday, 26 March 2021 at 12:53:57 PM
The deliberate poisoning of large street trees in Albany has prompted the City of Albany to send a message to the community that vandalising and destroying trees can come with criminal charges.
The City values its street trees, the community benefits they provide and natural habitat they offer animals such as birds, bandicoots and possums.
It was reported to the City that two large street trees in Emu Point and Mount Clarence had been deliberately poisoned via large holes that have been created through the trunk of the trees.
Street trees play a vital part in our local streetscape, promoting long-term health benefits, city liveability, complementing natural surrounding landscape and mitigates the effect of climate change.
In 2017 the City adopted an Urban Tree Strategy which has helped to grow local tree numbers by 926 additional trees to a total of 11,841 trees that now make up the City’s Urban Tree Inventory in 2021.
Including projects such as Centennial Park Sporting Precinct Promenade, Alison Hartman Gardens and the current Youth Challenge Park, the City plant in excess of roughly 300 infill trees per year.
The importance of our local trees and the effort to ensure they are maintained and well-kept makes any deliberate damage even more disappointing to the City and the community overall.
City of Albany Executive Director Infrastructure, Development and Environment Paul Camins said that residents should take pride in their street trees and value what they bring to the community.
“It’s incredibly disappointing that these healthy and thriving trees are treated with such disrespect and are poisoned for the benefit of individuals,” he said.
“The City does not support requests to remove trees that fall outside our tree maintenance guidelines as generally, trees would only be removed if they are in poor health or an immediate threat to public safety.
“In this instance where trees are deliberately poisoned; they will be replaced”.
The community are asked to report any suspicious activity to the City of Albany via the Report It function on the website, call 6820 3000 or email [email protected]
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