The unorthodox manner in which the city is clearing trees and bush near power lines has raised a protest from the new Ward 18 residents and ratepayers association.
The association’s Sophia Gilmore and Warren Angus said the city was hacking into the urban environment.
“Line clearance has become a chainsaw massacre.
“City trees are being topped, not pruned — and in peak bird-nesting season — while senior staff stay out of reach and there seems to have been little training of staff,” they said.
“When BCM is finished, first thing you notice is not the power line, but the silence where a tree canopy used to be.
“This is happening along suburban streets in Ward 18, which includes Nahoon, Stirling, Vincent, Berea, Bunkers Hill and Woodleigh.
“Tree crowns that once threw shade over pavements and properties have been sawn off at the neck.
“One palm stands with its living core ripped out and it is now just a dead shock of fronds.
“Another lovely old street tree has been left as a hat-rack: a thick trunk and a cluster of amputated limbs.
“We are not arguing against keeping lines clear of vegetation.
“We are saying the cuts were made as if the trees — and the birds still nesting in them in mid-September — were obstacles rather than living infrastructure.
The association’s spokesperson Kevin Harris said: “What we cannot accept is indiscriminate topping dressed up as maintenance.
“This is not pruning. This is destruction with a municipal logo somewhere in vicinity. Clearance is lawful but butchery is not arboriculture.
“The metro’s electricity bylaw gives it the right to cut. It does not give it the right to do so without competence, without notice except in a true emergency, and without regard for the other statutes that sit on the same pavement: biodiversity law, occupational health and safety, and the constitutional duty to provide an environment that is not harmful.
“Buffalo City’s own electricity supply bylaw is unambiguous.
“Property owners owner must keep trees from interfering with overhead lines.
“If they do not, the municipality may cut or trim — after notice – or immediately in an emergency — and may enter the property to do it.
“That power line exists for a reason. Wet fronds on a conductor, a branch falling on the line, a nest in electrical works can cause suburbs to go dark and it is how fire starts on a dry afternoon.
“However, we are looking at line clearance which would not be recognised as such by an arborist.
“Proper utility pruning is directional. It removes the limbs that grow towards the electrical wire and leaves the tree with a living crown that can still photosynthesise, shade a pavement and hold a nest.
“International and South African utility practice talks of clearance zones, drop-crotch cuts which preserve the tree’s shape, and the refusal to leave large heading [bough] wounds that invite decay.
“Our photos show the opposite: topping, lion-tailing, and the old hat-rack cut are turning mature trees into rotting scaffolds for weak epicormic shoots.
“Those shoots will grow fast, attach poorly, and fail in the next big wind — which is how a ‘cleared’ tree becomes a more dangerous tree two seasons later.
“The large, flat wounds visible in the pictures are entry points for fungi.
“In a warming city, a dead or hollow street tree is not a solved problem. It is a delayed one.
“If this is the standard of work, then we are paying twice: once to wreck the tree canopy, and again when the wreckage comes down on the very power line we are all trying to protect.
“September is not a quiet month in a tree — it is the opening of the main breeding window for a long list of suburban birds — weavers, doves, bulbuls, mouse birds, robins, and the raptors that still use tall street and garden trees as nest platforms in an urban mosaic.
“In our summer rainfall east of the country, egg-laying for many species runs from August into the first quarter of the new year. A chainsaw through a crown in the second week of September does not only remove leaves. It can remove a clutch of eggs.
“SA environmental law does not treat that as a private aesthetic complaint.
“The National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act and provincial conservation ordinances protect wild birds and their nests.
“Eskom’s own transmission and distribution guidelines which cover bird perches, nest management, flight diverters and seasonal sensitivity, came into existence because wildlife on infrastructure is a reliability issue and a legal one.
“A metro that distributes electricity is not exempt from the same logic simply because the electricity pole is municipal.
“We have watched officials treat nests as clutter, according to one of our committee members who had a brusque exchange with a senior official.”
Harris said: “Our association was formed precisely because people were tired of shouting into a void.
“Our stance on the environment has been made clear from the start — we raised the issue of sewage leaks and not enough maintenance and the lack of an upgrade.
“We did not expect the first visual shock of the spring to be the city’s own trees looking as if a storm had gone through them, except the storm had a purchase order.”
* The metro was asked to respond and said it would by Sunday. But this did not happen.
