Parks Dept can’t see the wood for the trees

IT’S about time that the local Parks Department manned up to the fact that they know very little about indigenous trees.

They also have a limited knowledge of invasive aliens which are left to flourish while our biodiversity gets compromised by people who should know better.

It is also fascinating that according to councillor, Jean Lindsay, the eThekwini Municipality has been busy planting hundreds of trees to counteract the effects of global warming. So while one office of a department is digging away planting trees another is out with its chainsaws cutting down beautiful old fig trees which have characterised this area of greater Durban for generations.

There was an offer made some months ago by the tree fundis belonging to the Westville conservancy to call them for advice before pandering to the demands of homeowners at the drop of a hat.

But our Parks Department seems to be schizophrenic, and perhaps if there was a fig tree on my verge I would get some action from a parks department which has ignored my pleas for almost five years.

The Douglas Firs on my verge are now more than a nuisance. Besides altering the soil ph, the needles litter the road, stain my car and the powerful roots have destroyed my driveway and are now dangerously close to the laundry wall.

Also they are now the tallest object in this street and, being at the top of a hill, are prime fodder for a lightning strike, given the violent storms we have had lately, caused by, – guess what – global warming.

So when I make yet another noise about this to my local councillor, he is assured that something will be done, and then nothing happens. No money.

Until the next time I write letters and beg and plead and inform them that when my house is damaged the municipality will be sent the bill. Nothing happens, again.

Yet up the road from me, a law practice moved shop into an old house which was then converted in to a Tuscan style building.

I am unaware of the circumstances, but from my observations there was nothing diseased about the two beautiful Umdonis which grew for generations outside this house. Perhaps they were rotten.

Who knows. They were hacked down by our parks department while the category 1 invasives destroying my property are left to flourish because they are “historic”.

A little further afield from my house the owners of another mansion on the rise have managed to have the identical trees to mine, growing on their verge, turned into match wood.

So may I humbly suggest that instead of fussing about changing the name of Durban’s Japanese Gardens in an exercise in social engineering, can we please think before we act.

Can we please seek advice from the experts, and can we please be seen to be concerned about the flourishing aliens, growing on council property, which are wiping out our indigenous plants.