10 January 2008

Vandalised young trees in Civic

| qwerky
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There are a number of young trees near the Canberra centre that have had several boughs yanked off, or left to dangle dangerously on the footpath, the raw wood exposed. I spotted this outrage on Tuesday, unfortunately too close to the end of Summernats for me to think it would have had nothing to do with that estimable event. Whoever the culprits were, I hope they’re feeling some shame now they’re sober. Everyone has to suffer as a result of their cruel stupidity. The shade provided a building will never be as cool or as soothing as that provided by a tree, and buildings don’t produce oxygen either.

The main reason I think that such senseless vandalism is increasing in our society is that we have so many old, healthy and established trees planted in our streets in rows, none missing.

How many trees will we have in 50 years?

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“I saw distuebing tree vandalism tonight in the carpark at Belco Mall – a your rights at work poster bolted into the tree.”

This just goes to show how little labor/unions care about the environment.

Vic Bitterman8:10 pm 13 Jan 08

qwerky = SGS

Oops, I got them mixed up – SKEGS were the skaters and westy’s/booners were kinda the same thing…

Sorry for the double post!

Weren’t westy’s skaters and booners into heavy metal? I remember the dedicated westy’s wearing flanny’s and the booners wearing tight stonewashed jeans…. noice!

Maelinar – check out the tree directly in front of you as you leave the red bridge – 4 bolts in it holding up two posters.

We used Boon, Westy and Bogan interchangably. But Bogan is a better-sounding word for people who stuff up our society.

Ha, booner and westy. I haven’t heard those for years. Yeah, Bogan is definitely an import.

To the people complaining about the “boganisation” of our society – since when did Canberrans use the word “bogan”? I remember we used to use the word “booner”, which before that was simply “boon” or “westy”. This might have just been at my schools though?

Snahons_scv6_berlina12:56 pm 11 Jan 08

But we can guess as the worth of those leafy green crops you speak of Danman 🙂

maybe they should put razor blades in them near the bottom of the main trunk.

I for one know that this is a rather successful way of persuading individuals to avoid my leafy green crops.

The trees you see today are simply the ones your parents in Chev impala’s, duck’s ass hairstyles and baseball bat letterbox softball didn’t knock down when they were growing up.

Circularly, the more destruction of plantings that goes on, turns into a bigger industry replacing them, which turns into a bigger skills base of agriculture related specialists.

So by destroying trees, they are fostering the industry base and skills future necessary to replace them – all funded from the taxes gained by the idiot who got inebriated in the first place.

Furthermore, telling somebody that what they are doing is actually a good thing, and they’ll most probably stop.

Holden Caulfield12:02 pm 11 Jan 08

Indeed, in fact it has even happened at my own house, or at least attempted to. For whatever reason a selection of plants, including three young eucalypts, were removed from our garden, but then left behind near to where they were originally planted. Fortunately, all seem to have recovered now.

But, I still maintain that the claim of “How many trees will we have in 50 years?” with the assertion it will be few due to vandalism, is a bit of an overreaction.

Following on from the cricket debacle, it must be this week’s theme. 😉

The destruction of trees and occasional theft of expensive plants is actually a concern for both a number of developers and other people with more money than sense in Red Hill & Griffith…

I recall often explaining to suprised security guards that their job that night was to guard saplings and plants from far-off-places from theft.

Holden Caulfield9:49 am 11 Jan 08

To the people complaining about the “boganisation of our society” did your parents predict the end of the world when you were kids too?

The fact that the trees mentioned by the OP were damaged is indeed a terrible shame and waste of resources, of those who planted them, and energy, for those that destroyed them. But to suggest that no tree will ever survive long enough to reach mature status is going out on a rather big limb don’t you think.

😉

The tree thing isn’t peculiar to Summernats. It was happening all last year. It was a depressingly regular cycle as I walked through Civic on my way to my car: young sapling goes in, within a couple of days young sapling has had a couple of limbs ripped away, within a couple of weeks young sapling is down to a stump, not long after another young sapling goes in and it all starts again. Why the hell aren’t they putting guards* around them? You’d only need them for a couple of years until the tree got big enough – the sort of drunk dickhead who’ll rip off a tree branch for a larf doesn’t strike me as having the initiative to actually go and get the tools to finish off a big tree, or all the well-established street trees would be defoliated too.

*By “guards” I mean those round metal things that make the trees at least a little bit harder to attack, not human sentries, just in case you were wondering.

@Nemo – for the most part, I have found the orange signs to have been hung in a responsible fashion. I will check out the one at Belconnen Mall the next time I’m over that way though, as I use that carpark.

I think a more curious question would be why did they bother putting up any signs at all, wouldn’t it have been a better value for money to use such an extensive signposting regime in non-labour bastions ?

Well said, Mike! Perfect.

Mike Crowther1:00 am 11 Jan 08

There are some who simply can’t resist the lure of killing a more intelligent life-form than themselves.

I often think this exact thing. all the mature tree plantings evidently grew unmolested. But when they plant saplings now, bogans rip bits off them, smash the whole tree and pull it out.

the government takes out mature trees saying they’re diseased etc, and they’ll plant some more. But I think that those plantings won’t make it, because of the boganisation of our society.

Jonathon Reynolds11:53 pm 10 Jan 08

@Nemo
That is almost as bad as the Greens election posters nailed in to trees during the Federal Campaign….

I saw distuebing tree vandalism tonight in the carpark at Belco Mall – a your rights at work poster bolted into the tree.

barking toad11:12 pm 10 Jan 08

In 50 years we’ll have less trees because we’ll be cutting them down for firewood for cooking and heating after the Gorebull worshippers stop us using oil, coal, gas, petrol and electricity.

I hope they weren’t Atlas cedars.

Says a lot to me today! You seemed to be suggesting cause and effect between an increase of senseless vandalism and the (healthy) number of trees in Canberra. I didn’t get the link. I get what you’re saying in your answer though.

Holden Caulfield9:05 pm 10 Jan 08

Those filthy Floriade bastards just can’t wait until the spring time for their fun can they. No they have to get their kicks in the summer too!

Beautifully descriptive word is ‘huh’. It says so much. I mean that the number of very old, healthy trees seem to indicate that vandalism of trees was less prevalent previously than it is now, wouldn’t you say? In other words, if they’d been vandalised when young, they wouldn’t be there now.

“The main reason I think that such senseless vandalism is increasing in our society is that we have so many old, healthy and established trees planted in our streets in rows, none missing.”

Huh?

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