RESIDENTS in the southern suburbs have been demanding action on big trees dotted around parks and private land.
As a group in Rivervale urged the City of Belmont to cut down a large tree in Copley Park because falling branches could be a risk, a resident in East Victoria Park urged councils to take a stronger stance on large trees on privately owned property.
Councils all around the river are becoming more and more inventive in their response to the deaths of trees in foreshore parks because of vandalism, with City of South Perth constructing metal trees to stand in their place as a warning that poisoning trees is illegal.
Trees arouse strong emotions in everyone, from Tolkien who burdened them with wisdom as the Ents, to Gosnells’ Richard Pennicuik who will live in one for however long it takes to save it from the chainsaw.
As suburbs grow more densely populated every inch of flora and fauna is more precious and rightly so; every living thing offers a little bit of happiness.
Not only habitats for birds and other wildlife, trees are a mental relief from the walls of suburbia. Reportedly patients in hospitals heal better when they have a view of trees from their room.
However, when do the benefits of a natural resource come at a cost to the community?
People in riverfront properties can claim a right to their view of the City skyline as a natural resource they have paid for just as the rest of us claim a right to tall trees that might block it.
As ratepayers we as a community need to decide when the public benefit outweighs the disadvantage of large trees in the suburbs, but surely our rights end at the boundary of our neighbours’ properties.
Private land is owned, maintained and enjoyed by private citizens. Each private citizen has their responsibility to society; living in a society is always a balance of public versus private interests.
However, trees add much more to a locality than a landowner burdened with their maintenance can calculate.
As a society, we need to decide whether we include providing a green canopy as one of the responsibilities we are willing to bear, or whether our communal burden is already too high.