The destruction of our trees in the Vaal

Arbour Month is observed in South Africa in September – a time to plant trees and pay special attention to our environment and the role trees play in it. Unfortunatelly many trees in the Vaal are being felled. A well-known former academic and tree lover from the Vaal wrote this opinion piece under the pseudonym ‘Oom Louw Bettrie’.

It doesn’t take any great powers of observation or calculation to realise that over a thousand of our municipal trees planted along our pavements in Vanderbijlpark have recently gone missing, since the year 2000. If this sounds like an exaggeration: residents can take any 3 streets and one of our boulevards in their neighbourhoods and travel along them, counting the missing trees. For example, in parts of Piet Retief boulevard, more than 80% of the trees are missing, likewise half the trees of Tanner street have gone. Then multiply your missing-tree count by the hundreds of streets in our town.

The 5 most important reasons that trees are planted along our roads are the following:

1. Trees absorb noise, and serve as a natural buffer against traffic noise pollution;
2. Trees absorb some forms of pollution, also the result of traffic and industrial pollution in this area;
3. Trees absorb heat, and their removal results in the increase of ambient heat in an area;
4. Trees retain moisture, and thus lower the rate of the drying out of the atmosphere.
5. Trees form natural windbreaks, and they prevent our streets from becoming wind tunnels and prevent possible damage to property.

The Emfuleni municipality does not remove pavement trees, except when a valid reason has been provided, such as danger to property, obstructing vision for traffic, and so on. The removal of trees would be acceptable in some cases, if they were replaced by new trees, but this never happens.

In general, trees are being removed by residents or businesses from pavements or, as in a recent occurence in Rossini boulevard, where several trees were removed by cable layers. The legitimate removal of trees requires permission, in terms of municipal regulations, from the Emfuleni town council’s relevant departments, and any illegal removal of trees borders on blatant vandalism of municipal property.

Recently eight trees were removed along the Van Riebeeck boulevard boundry of Herfsoord, which will result in the rise in heat, noise and dryness to the property alongside. But even worse is the fact that these trees were planted as part of the original historical development of the CBD area, and as such this is the destruction of Heritage trees in our town. For shame!

There are a number of “tree-fellers” in Vanderbijlpark, who readily carry out the requests of “customers” who have not obtained the necessary permissions. The Emfuleni municipality also needs to both inform these entrepreneurs that their actions are illegal and to control their activities by registering them with the relevant municipal departments. – Oom Louw Bettrie.