Developers, homeowners in Adelaide abusing confusing rules to axe trees

Sneaky developers and homeowners are exploiting confusing rules meant for country areas to cut down trees in the city fringe and foothills.

Tree rules for country areas are being abused by developers and homeowners who want to clear land in the city fringe and foothills, conservationists say.

Several submissions to a state government review question the application of these rules to a dozen metropolitan councils.

It comes as hundreds of reports of illegal land clearance have largely gone unpunished.

Conservation SA chief executive Craig Wilkins says “tree canopy policy at the urban fringe is a dog’s breakfast with confusing overlap between native vegetation protection, bushfire prevention, the planning code and significant tree regulations”.

“If a homeowner is determined to cut a tree down they can find a way by choosing the rules that best suit them,” he said.

The Native Vegetation Regulations allow the removal of any large trees within 10m of a building, for “maintenance” to be carried out on that building, whether it’s a house, garden shed or chicken coop.

The regulations also allow removal of vegetation within 5m of a fence line. The intent is to allow farmers to maintain fuel breaks around their fences.

Tom Morrison of Glenalta, who formed the facebook group 20 Metre Trees, in Belair National Park looking back over the Mitcham Hills area. Picture: Dean Martin

The other set of rules, for significant and regulated trees, allow the removal of large trees within 20m of a “dwelling” in medium to high bushfire risk zones, meaning both sets of rules apply in many leafy suburbs. Sometimes one rule is used to remove trees that should have been protected under another, Mr Wilkins said.

“We are losing ancient trees at an alarming rate against the spirit of the original rules,” he said, because developers and homeowners on the urban fringe are “taking advantage of rules designed for country areas”.

The Native Vegetation Act applies in parts of the following 12 largely metropolitan council areas: Adelaide Hills; Burnside; Campbelltown; Charles Sturt; Gawler; Marion; Mitcham; Playford; Port Adelaide Enfield; Salisbury; Tea Tree Gully and Walkerville.

After a bad experience with a neighbour, Tom Morrison of Glenalta studied the tree laws and created the popular 20 Metre Trees Facebook page, now with 3500 followers, to call for better protections.

“What we have now is not fulfilling its intended purpose, which is to protect large trees or prevent the unnecessary removal of large trees,” he said. “The radius of what can be cleared is actually just ridiculous.”

The conservation groups Trees for Life, the Nature Conservation Society SA and the Nature Alliance also raised concerns including:

INSUFFICIENT staffing and resourcing within the Environment Department for clearance assessment and compliance monitoring;

INAPPROPRIATE exemptions for “major projects” and for the specific projects named in the legislation, which are the SA Motorsport Park at Tailem Bend and developments within Flinders Chase National Park; and

OVER-RELIANCE on offsets, allowing developers to compensate for clearing land by paying a fee and/or planting trees elsewhere, as these revegetation projects can be poorly resourced and insufficiently maintained.

A state government spokesman refused to respond to these concerns or provide any detail about the review process or number of submissions received.

“The Natural Resources Committee review into the Native Vegetation Act is ongoing,” he said. “All submissions are welcome and will be considered as part of the process.”

Clearing present danger: Only five fines a year

More than 900 reports of potential illegal land clearance have been made across South Australia in the past five years.

But only five people a year on average since 2012 have been fined for the practice, and 12 people have been issued with enforcement notices, requiring them to either stop clearing land or make amends through revegetation or fencing.

It comes as one company in the South-East will pay $200,000 into a fund to protect and revegetate land of conservation significance, after the settlement of civil proceedings launched by the Native Vegetation Council over illegal land clearance.

The Environment, Resources and Development Court previously fined a director of the company $52,500 for breaching the Native Vegetation Act, after the same incident, which involved the clearance of 10ha of ridge-fruited mallee, dune stringy bark and sand-heath yacca.

Only five people a year have been fined for illegal vegetation clearance.

An Environment Department spokesman said 12 per cent of land-based native flora and fauna was threatened in SA and illegal land clearance was likely to contribute to this.

“Taking action in response to breaches of the Native Vegetation Act is necessary to ensure that habitat that is lost is put back somewhere else … and to act as a deterrent to others from undertaking such clearance,” he said.

The Native Vegetation Council in the past financial year “received or detected” 183 reports of potential illegal clearance.

As a result of those, 20 landowners were either fined or issued with enforcement notices – or both. Legal proceedings were initiated in relation to two matters, in the South-East and north of Port Augusta.

A further 45 were issued with “education letters”, sent when there is not clear evidence of a breach, and a further 19 given written cautions.

The department said others did not require action or were pending further details.

The Native Vegetation Council’s 2019-20 annual report – the latest released – said about 20 to 30 per cent of alleged native vegetation clearance was usually detected through its change-detection program, which involved analysis of satellite imagery.

But it said no reports were received through the program that financial year due to “resourcing constraints”.

Conservation Council SA chief executive Craig Wilkins said monitoring through satellite imagery could help deter pe­ople from illegally clearing land, and also penalise them.

The Environment Department spokesman said satellite imagery was used regularly.