Hundreds of trees killed and no one held to account. How tree vandalism happens 'every day' across Sydney
In the leafy suburbs of Sydney, there's one crime above all that gets under people's skin.
You know the old philosophical question, if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
It's a conundrum for the residents of Willowie Road, Castle Cove.
In July last year, 265 trees were illegally killed — some of them poisoned, others cut by hand or chainsaw — and all just metres from people's homes.
The thing is, no one who lives along this picturesque strip — where the mansions meet native bush and spectacular Sydney water views — heard or saw a thing.
At the time, the crime caused an outcry and made international headlines.
The trees felled included banksias and an angophora thought to be up to 100 years old.
The local council offered a $10,000 reward for anyone who came forward with information that could lead to a successful prosecution, but 12 months on and there's been, well, crickets.
Little can be gleaned from those who inhabit the multi-million-dollar properties directly opposite the site of the destruction.
Most don't want to speak to the media.
Several say the saga has been a nightmare. They've all fallen under suspicion and even copped abuse from people driving past.
"I feel like when everyone walked past, they're looking at us like we done it," said one resident named Kelly, who moved in a few months after the trees were killed.
"The feeling is not good, you know? But, like, we haven't done anything."
Yet, none are prepared to point the finger at their neighbours.
This is Sydney's North Shore — a collection of quintessential "good" suburbs.
There are big houses, big backyards, some with tennis courts and water views.
But there's a growing sense of disharmony.
In recent years, reported cases of tree vandalism have increased.
Some locals say that the "green heart" of Sydney is losing the very thing that makes it so appealing — its trees.
To understand what's behind this rise in illegal tree killing, Background Briefing interviewed tree loppers, concerned residents and the authorities tasked with investigating these crimes.
We've learned there is a thriving underground industry where the pursuit of profit outweighs the fear of being caught.
'Just come at night and drop it'
Fifty kilometres from the North Shore, in Sydney's west, lives James*.
James has worked as a tree lopper all over Sydney for close to 20 years.
"I had terrible customers in the Palm Beach area, Manly area, Bondi. They asked me to cut trees on the water, on public land. They told me, 'just come at night, drop it'," he says.
He says most of these people are looking to improve their views.
"We do have a lot of customers, they just want to have a nice view, they want to cut to open a water view," he says.
"Some people, they just want to build something, a swimming pool or something at the back and they can't get permission from council. We do get a lot of this."
James says clients often tell him "name your price" and he says some job offers have been worth up to $15,000.
And he says it's happening all over the city, every day.
"If you're looking for easy money, it's very good," he says.
James suspects a tree lopper would charge at least $20,000 for a big, risky job like the one at Castle Cove.
He says he's "no angel" but he's never illegally killed a tree.
Lack of regulation
Anyone can call themselves a tree lopper — all they need is a ute, a ladder and a chainsaw and they could be making thousands in their first weekend on the job.
Many so-called "tree loppers" are unregulated, often operating without insurance or even a licence to use a chainsaw.
"There are a lot of tree loppers, they know nothing about tree lopping," James says.
"Most of them have a fake business account. So if they do any damage on the property or whatever, they just close the phone. They just run away and turn off the phone and that's it. The business is not registered."
James says there are many ways to kill a tree — especially if discretion is required.
He describes a long-term course and a short-term course.
The longer method involves salty or chlorinated water.
The shortest way is always poison.
"Some people they use a drill [and pour in] the poison from the roots. Some people, they climb on the ladder and do it high so no one can see it," James says.
Then it's just a matter of waiting for the poison to do its job. Once the tree is dead, it's much easier to get council permission to have it removed.
It's something that North Shore resident Louise has noticed time and again around her property.
"You often see the leaves browning off, going a bronzy colour. And that's how you can tell pretty much that it's been poisoned," she says.
"When we first came here there was a lot more canopy in the area, not just where we are, but further down the hill too."
Louise and her husband Jim are part of a growing group of frustrated North Shore residents who say they see illegal tree loppers in action all the time.
They're members of Tree Watch, which was started by the Voices of Ku-ring-gai community group, and they act as pseudo tree vigilantes.
Anytime they hear or see anything suspicious around a tree, the members communicate on their WhatsApp group and then report it to council. Sometimes they'll even go and confront whoever's there.
"It's always on a Saturday. Always on the weekend when council's not open," Louise says.
"Often I'll go into the house and go, 'What are you doing? Where are the owners?' You know, I'm quite confrontational."
Louise says they regularly get approached by tree loppers offering to do jobs for them on the spot.
"They'll come knock on the door, or try and catch you while you're outside and say: 'Hi. Do you want a tree cut down? We can do it for cheap,'" she says.
Last year, another Tree Watch member, Tony, noticed something worrying about three healthy blue gums in the backyard of a property close by.
The property had just been sold and Tony says it wasn't long before the trees in the backyard wound up dead. He estimates one of them, the biggest, to be close to 200 years old.
Tony suspected the trees had been poisoned, so he complained to council. He says council rangers came and inspected, and ordered the two smaller trees be removed, but the biggest one had to remain as an animal habitat.
But when the tree loppers arrived, the orders were ignored.
"I hear this god awful noise and this big lump of timber just dropped to the ground," he says.
Tony went over and confronted the tree loppers.
"And this guy sidled up to me in an intimidating way, 'No, no, we didn't cut it down. Who cut it down? You can't prove anything.'
"I knew I was sort of out of my depth at this point. We're not talking nice anymore. They know they've just been caught red-handed."
Tony reported the incident to council, but he's still waiting to hear of an outcome.
Through the suburban grapevine, Tony says he's heard the new property owners want to put a tennis court in the backyard, where the big tree once stood.
"The uplift on property value around here for a tennis court is about half a million dollars," he says.
"So whatever the fines are is insignificant.
"If you've got the money to buy a property and potentially put a tennis court on, you're not the slightest bit worried about a small fine."
The burden of proof
Council can issue on-the-spot fines for tree vandalism of up to $3,000 for individuals and $6,000 for companies..
Higher fines can be issued if the cases make it to court. But this is where things get a bit murky.
The burden of proof in these cases is high and legal costs can be huge, so often these cases aren't litigated.
Louise and her husband Jim are fed up watching the environment around them lose out to development, or because people simply don't like trees close to their homes.
"That's why we live here — for the trees and for the birds and for the ambience," Louise says.
"People around here are very pro-trees, but we've had a lot of turnover of residents.
"A lot of them are buying here for the schools. They want their kids to go to some of the private schools around here. Often new residents come in and they don't like the trees."
And Jim says the loss of trees in our suburbs all comes at a cost.
"You take the trees out? The road gets hot. There's no shade. There's nothing," he says.
And Jim's right. This is becoming a big issue for planning departments around the country.
They look at how much area is under tree canopy coverage in our cities and suburbs.
Adequate canopy coverage requires trees that are more than three metres tall — so they're big enough to provide shade, help with soil drainage and improve air quality.
Almost 22 per cent of Greater Sydney is under tree canopy cover, according to the latest assessment from 2022.
The NSW government wants to increase that amount to 40 per cent by 2036.
But that goal seems unlikely.
On the North Shore, canopy coverage has improved slightly in some areas, but in others, it's gone backwards.
And cases of tree vandalism aren't helping — in the Ku-ring-gai Council area alone, there were more than 600 reported cases of tree vandalism between 2022 and 2023.
There are other tensions here too — soaring property prices have seen an increase in development.
Then there's the state's housing crisis. At the same time it wants to increase canopy cover, the NSW government is urgently trying to build more homes — in fact, it wants to build 377,000 new homes in the next five years.
And all that development comes at a cost.
But it's not just water views and tennis courts that drive people to cut down trees.
There's another, somewhat unexpected motive.
Bad feng shui
One North Shore resident — who does not live in Castle Cove — told Background Briefing that she'd illegally removed a tree in her front yard in order to improve feng shui.
The ancient Chinese Taoist practice of feng shui focuses on achieving harmony between individuals and the environment by manipulating energy forces, also known as qi or chi.
And it turns out, there are feng shui masters who provide advice to property owners on how best to do all this.
"We provide the services for local people. We provide our feng shui inspection and our assessment for retail shops, warehouses, land and for developers," explains Sydney-based feng shui master Meixi Yan.
Master Yan says she does get clients asking if they can cut down trees to improve feng shui on their property.
She explains that in some cases a tree can be bad for feng shui because it can potentially block the flow of money or it could throw off the balance of yin and yang.
Master Yan says she does not advise people to illegally cut down trees.
"The tree also has a spiritual life, so we need to respect them," she says.
Back at Castle Cove, the motive for decimating 14 tennis courts worth of native bushland remains a mystery.
On one side of the street, green ferns are starting to emerge from the scorched patch of land.
Just across the road, the multi-million-dollar mansions look out over the gnarled trunks of dead gums and down to the water of the cove below.
As a kind of collective public shaming, council has erected huge yellow and orange billboards that face the houses opposite the site.
"THESE SIGNS WILL REMAIN UNTIL THE TREES GROW BACK", they read.
Background Briefing was able to speak to all but one of the residents who live directly opposite the site of the tree killing.
That property owner is believed to be in China, but attempts to contact them there to find out if they saw or heard anything hit a dead end.
Extensive renovations are being conducted at the property, however, an employee for the construction company doing the work told Background Briefing they'd been instructed by their boss not to talk about the tree clearing and they said it had nothing to do with them.
And almost 12 months since the trees were mysteriously felled, it seems Willoughby Council hasn't gotten much further with its investigation.
It says its investigation is continuing and that "interviews have commenced with further interviews to be conducted.”
Mayor Tanya Taylor says harsher penalties are needed to deter would-be-tree killers.
"I think a lot of people just incorporate the potential penalties into the cost of the build at times," she says.
Willoughby Council along with several others on the North Shore have been lobbying the NSW government to increase penalties for tree vandalism.
In a statement, the NSW minister for Planning and Public spaces, Paul Scully, said: "Larger fines mean nothing if you can't get the suitable evidence to prosecute people."
He said he had asked his department to consult with local councils on options and that he hopes to have a stronger regime in place soon.
In the meantime, Willoughby Council is taking more of an educational approach in its efforts to combat tree vandalism.
Last month it launched its tree festival — a program of events to teach the community about the value of trees.
It's an important message, but whether it lands remains to be seen.
In this city, where homes with tennis courts and water views sell for many millions of dollars — money talks.
James the tree lopper says he sees it every day on the job.
"Money always wins. People get more hungry when they have more. So they just want to get more money and that's it," he says.
*Name has been changed.
Credits
Reporter: Brigid Andersen, Tynan King and Ilham Issak
Photography: Brendan Esposito
Digital editor: Judy Adair
Executive Producer: Fanou Filali