FIG a Memoir

FIG a memoir Hospital Road, Sydney, 2004 Timothy J Entwisle 2014 This is the story of how removing ten trees in Sydney turned into the Fig Tree Massacre. It is as much about Sydney and its politics and people in 2004 as it is about managing (not massacring) heritage landscapes. Australia’s richest man at the time, Kerry Packer, dumped a truck-load of mulch in protest. Sydney’s Lord Mayor demanded I be sacked. And broadcaster Alan Jones described me as a fat, lazy bureaucrat. I wasn’t too fussed by the mulch (which I put to good use) or for that matter the opinion of the Lord Mayor at that time, but I was mildly offended by being called a bureaucrat. In the end I was responsible for killing and removing the trees from Sydney’s Domain while Director of that city’s Royal Botanic Gardens. I’d only been Director for a few months and the tussle to remove the trees became a test of my resolve and resilience as much as anything else. More importantly though it was a test of how we, as a (mostly) relatively recent immigrant community in Australia, cope with our first large-scale replacement of elderly of trees in towns and cities. When I rang Kerry Packer to thank him for the delivery of mulch, he told me of magnificent old fig trees in Buenos Aires which I have now seen and admired myself. We prop and fence a few old favourites in Australia, as they do there, but that’s only part of the solution. Mr Packer said if he was in my position he’d reconsider the decision to remove the Moreton Bay figs in the Domain. It was a cordial and mutually respectful conversation, perhaps best captured by his signing-off remark that I should remember his horticultural advice was worth what I was paying for it. Alan Jones and I didn’t speak at the time, although I was keen to go on air to explain why I thought it was the right thing to remove and replace these particular trees at this particular time. I would have explained how the trees were in poor shape, suffering from some historical neglect and regular insect attack and that they were considered unsafe or soon to be so. Fencing them off wasn’t possible due to their proximity to roads, their place in the landscape (as shade trees and part of the public parkland) and the unattractiveness of a Domain criss-crossed with fencing. Apart from all that there was the ethical matter of the trees having to be removed at some point and it being the responsible and generous thing to do now. Oh, and the need to remove an avenue in its entirety so that you can replace with even-aged trees (experience - ii - elsewhere in Sydney showed that you can’t plant new figs near old and expect them to grow successfully, even where there is room for a second row). The Lord Mayor of Sydney had her own tree problems soon after, with a report to Council showing that much of the canopy of Hyde Park would need replacing over the next decade or two. Like Melbourne, Sydney has lots of parks and streetscapes made beautiful by old trees. Some of the most beautiful and beguiling are now a century or more old. Old trees can become unsafe, they can become unattractive in the landscape – not, I rush to add, unattractive themselves in old age (as with people they can become expressive and if the age well, more attractive in maturity) – and in a city they have a finite life. All is explained here. Dedicated To my wife Lynda, who shared it all. Thank you. To Bob Debus, who didn’t waiver. And to all my supportive friends and colleagues … © Timothy John Entwisle, published (on-line, open-access) 9 October 2014. As the band name said, ten years after. - iii - Contents Dedication ......................................................................................... iii Introduction ........................................................................................ 1 1. Figs are doomed to death ............................................................... 5 A good friday ................................................................................... 5 Lord Mayor furious ....................................................................... 10 Media releases at ten paces ............................................................ 14 Chainsaws started .......................................................................... 17 Greens out on a limb ......................................................................18 I condemn ...................................................................................... 21 End of week one ............................................................................ 22 2. Clover my dead body .................................................................... 25 Enter Clover, to ringing applause ................................................. 25 Moore acts to end chainsaw massacre .......................................... 30 3. Domain’s living dead await chop ................................................. 35 Botanical parkland ........................................................................ 35 Acceptances only ........................................................................... 36 Safe useful life ............................................................................... 39 1000 flyers and 200 letters ............................................................ 41 The plan ........................................................................................ 44 A new job ....................................................................................... 50 My fact sheet ................................................................................. 53 4. Fat Lazy Bureaucrat ..................................................................... 56 - iv - Fig expert uses bogus credentials ................................................. 56 Andrew Woodhouse ...................................................................... 58 Influential friends ......................................................................... 58 The brain dead people at the Trust ................................................ 61 Moreton Bay (Trad.) ..................................................................... 64 The message .................................................................................. 65 5. Not manifestly unreasonable ....................................................... 69 Our days in court ........................................................................... 69 In our own words .......................................................................... 72 Judicial view...................................................................................75 The way I told it ............................................................................ 82 7. Fig will be spared the chop ........................................................... 84 Figs face the chop .......................................................................... 84 Council’s extraordinary oversight ................................................. 86 City gives a fig – at a cost .............................................................. 87 8. Reprieve for fig............................................................................. 92 A picturesque landscape ............................................................... 92 Fit fig will be spared the chop ....................................................... 95 Modelling provisions .................................................................... 97 Monday 28 June 2004 ................................................................. 101 Moore gives up ............................................................................ 103 You know nothing ....................................................................... 104 9. Postscript ................................................................................... 108 Axe fell too early .......................................................................... 108 - v - New trees for Domain ................................................................. 109 The Victimisation of the Moreton Bay fig .................................... 110 Go figure ....................................................................................... 114 Epitaph ......................................................................................... 119 ENDNOTES .................................................................................... 121 - vi - Introduction Infestations by the Fig Psyllid (Mycopsylla fici) had become a big problem in Sydney. These small insects live in colonies under a sticky cover they produce called a lerp. The lerps can block the breathing pores (stomata) in the leaves or at the very least reduce the area available for photosynthesis, which is the process plants used to generate sugars from sunlight, carbon-dioxide and water. A heavy load of lerps will kill leaves and there is a regular periodic defoliation of the Moreton Bay figs around the city. In time trees become less resilient to other stresses such as drought and age. In 2004 the Sydney City Council and Sydney’s Botanic Gardens ended up in the Land and Environment Court fighting over a few figs. Not dried fruits and gastronomy, but whether the Trust had the right, and the right rationale, to remove aging Moreton Bay figs from the Domain in Sydney. While only a small blip in the public psyche now, this confrontation was the beginning of a maturity in Sydney’s approach to trees and tree replacement. The judgment of the court was damning for the Council, with an ironic sting

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