By PAUL MILLAR
A tree-shredding exercise along Surf Coast roads was an attack on the area’s biological heritage, according to a local environmentalist.
Bellbrae’s Graeme Stockton said local wildlife was left climbing the extinction ladder after the severe pruning to reduce the risk of fire from trees contacting power lines.
The work had trashed a tree canopy along Torquay’s Coombes and Messmate Rds, he said.
“If re-planting to restore the roadside canopy commenced tomorrow it would take some 50 years or more to put back what we already had.”
Mr Stockton said the lopping might conform to guidelines but alternatives were needed.
“This is death by a thousand cuts and nobody notices it because it happens over decades … and we don’t have a replacement program.”
Mr Stockton said the pruning was “unwittingly destroying the environment around us”.
“Birds, possums, bats they all use these corridors and they come along one day and they’re gone. There’s already a serious decline in woodland birds across Australia.”
Mr Stockton wrote to councillors about his concerns.
“The shire’s regressive roadside safety guidelines illustrate graphically the gaping void between environmental standards by the shire and what it expects from the community,” he wrote.
A Surf Coast Shire spokesman said the pruning was in line with a combination of programs to prevent fires, reduce fuel loads, improve biodiversity and improve road safety.
“Council understands that the aesthetic effect of combining the works is more pronounced. However, the works were combined to save on costs to the community.”
Qualified arborists oversaw the work, which left protected vegetation unharmed, the spokesman said.
