The site of Blue Mountains Significant Tree #5 – it was a massive Eucalyptus oreades

~ Our endemic heritage woodchipped into oblivion

Lest we forget!

(Photo of Editor 20120111, free in public domain, click photo to enlarge)

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This mature native tree was respected enough to have been listed on Blue Mountain Council’s Significant Tree Register.  Indeed it was the 5th such listed tree on Blue Mountains Council’s Register of Significant Trees back in 1988.

So what is the meaning of a ‘Significant Tree‘ on Blue Mountains Council’s register?

Well back on 21st June 1988 the Register of Significant Trees was adopted by Blue Mountains Council as an integral part of its Development Control Plan, which proclaimed significant trees be protected under Clause 6 ‘Protection of Items Listed in the Register of Significant Trees‘ so that:

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‘No person shall ringbark, cut down, top, lop, injure, wilfully destroy or cause damage to the root system off any tree listed on the Register of Significant trees without consent of Council.’

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Perhaps the current Blue Mountains Council mayor may care to publicly explain why its Significant Tree Number 5, a locally endemic Eucalyptus oreades (Blue Mountains Ash) of some stature located opposite 252 Old Bathurst Road Katoomba (Lot 2 DP707) has been woodchipped into oblivion?

• Was formal Blue Mountains Council consent given to kill it?
• If so, when was this Blue Mountains Council consent given to kill it?
• What Blue Mountains Council documentation is publicly available to validate such consent?
• What public notice was provided by Blue Mountains Council for community consultation about its killing?
• Does Blue Mountains Council give a bleeding toss?

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The objectives of Blue Mountains Council’s Significant Tree Register include:

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(a) identify and protect those trees listed on the Register
(b) promote greater public awareness of the existence of the Register, and the individual items listed
(c) ensure existing and, importantly, prospective land owners, are made aware of the Significant Trees which may be located on their property
(d) ensure correct on-going care and maintenance of those trees listed, through the recommendations included with the significant tree register

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The following tree is not even on the Blue Mountains Council Significant Tree Register, so has even less chance of protection.

Katoomba’s most significant (grandfather) Eucalyptus oreades, beside Megalong Street

 Pitifully it manages to survive as an extremely rare relic of the once magnificent Oreades Forest

This tree is ‘endemic’ to the Central Upper Blue Mountains at Katoomba

(That is, it grows naturally nowhere else on the friggin Planet!) 

(Photo of Editor 20120111, free in public domain, click photo to enlarge)

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But this tree is perpetually being subjected by Blue Mountains Council approved industrial development after industrial development – the road widening, the recent expansion of the bus depot across the road and now some ‘mega industrial’ estate behind it.  Blue Mountains Council pro-development forces are mounting against it.

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The Mega industrial development immediately behind this magnificent native tree

~ but what would BMCC care?

(Photo by Habitat Investigator 20120111, free in public domain, click photo to enlarge)

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The Theo Poulos promoted ‘Mega Industrial Park’

excavated right behind this rare, significant Eucalyptus oreades,

~ as if the developer or Theo Poulos gives a crap!

(Photo by Habitat Investigator 20120111, free in public domain, click photo to enlarge)

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But then Blue Mountains Council’s so-called Significant Tree Register has always been a crock of deceptive community greenwashing!

As soon as any tree on its register becomes slightly inconvenient, our pro-development Blue Mountains Council, strangled by Liberal-Labor Party vested interests, easily turns a blind eye to significant Blue Mountain heritage and no more significant tree.

Is it any wonder that as the Blue Mountains is allowed to be developed and its natural amenity destroyed that outsiders no longer see the Blue Mountains as a significant attraction, but more as an extension of Sydney sprawl?  They just speed past on that forever faster, noisier and more dangerous Trucking Expressway!

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