Sydney Council Threatens Animal Rescue Volunteers with “Tree Vandalism” Fines
Image: WIRESwildliferescue/Instagram
Canada Bay council has banned animal rescue volunteers from WIRES from taking cuttings from public trees to feed animals in their care, threatening fines if they continue.
“Realistically, if council tells us that we can’t take cuttings from trees, we can’t take care of animals. That’s the bottom line,” WIRES Inner West branch vice-chair Emily Saker told the Sydney Morning Herald.
Volunteers from WIRES say they had been regularly pruning native trees on public land across Sydney without issue, until August last year, when a volunteer was stopped by council arborists while using a pole saw to take cuttings from a tree in Campbell Park, Chiswick.
The council employees told the volunteer that what they were doing was an act of “tree vandalism” and threatened with a fine if they continued. Only months later in December, the same volunteer was threatened with a fine for a second time, this time near the Croatia Club in Concord.
“We’re at risk of losing carers … a lot of our volunteers are elderly, a lot of our volunteers can be pensioners. And the idea of somebody approaching you when you are doing a public good as a volunteer and being told that you will get a fine or potentially charged with vandalism, it just puts our volunteers between a rock and a hard place,” Saker said.
Pruning must be done by “appropriately qualified professionals”, says council
In an email to volunteers, council staff said that taking the cuttings was “not a sustainable practice” and could result in “long-term detrimental impacts”.
“Unfortunately, council processes and legislation cannot make any exceptions for individuals or corporations undertaking pruning without the relevant qualifications,” the email said.
Volunteers within the Inner West Council area can take cuttings without issue, and no complaints have been made against volunteers, a council spokesperson said.
The council has encouraged volunteers to travel to sites such as Sydney Olympic Park or Western Sydney Parklands, but volunteers say many of them aren’t able to travel so far out.
Canada Bay has also offered cuttings from their own pruning activities, but the branches might not be suitable, with possums needing a variety of leaf species, and a mixture of young and mature foliage.
“Our trees are an important part of our natural environment, so it’s crucial that pruning is undertaken by appropriately qualified professionals who are trained to manage trees in a way that preserves their health and structure,” said a council spokesperson in a statement.
Tree vandalism has become an issue for Canada Bay and other harbour-front councils, particularly at reserves blocking potential harbour views.
The NSW government is seeking to increase the penalties, which currently sit at $3000 fines for individuals.
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