I guess it's just that time of year, right? We're all a bit done with 2024. I feel like I'm ranting more than anyone on Hive, but perhaps I'm just offloading so I feel better. The thing is, I do feel okay, all things considered. Maybe it's just people doing stupid things close to Christmas.

See this tree? It's a 10,000 dollar 30 year old redgum. Redgums are freaking magnificent. They take years to grow. Aboriginal people used to smoke fish in the older giants and there are shield trees too where they'd cut them for shields and canoes. They're culturally Australia's favourite tree.

The two teen boys in the reserve thought it was magnificent to chop it down with an axe. We didn't catch them in the act, unfortunately, only put two and two together later, having heard banging noises in the reserve and then seeing the tree the next day. To say we were pissed off was an understatement. We told the council, mainly as we wanted the wood but didn't want to get blamed for it. Their mother picks them up every night at the end of the court. I think they are building cubby houses in the pines. We can't actually prove it was them, unfortunately, but what would happen? A rap on the knuckles? We could request some old fashioned justice, like hanging them from the telephone poles, but that's not allowed these days.

Besides, that kind of justice doesn't work. What people need is to feel connected to nature, to value it, to see it as important. Do that, and they want to protect it. Why their mother hasn't taught them that I don't know. Too busy? Doesn't care herself?

Because it's not just kids. I was talking to a guy in the carpark after a surf and he owns fifty acres on the edge of town. A couple bought the neighbouring property, moving down from Melbourne after COVID. One day, he heard a chainsaw. He immediately ran down the creek, where the two properties border. He calls it the enchanted forest, but it's just a small group of trees along a pretty waterway. His neighbour was mid felling a 250 redgum. He certainly gave him a talking to - they're worth thousands and thousands in fines, but you can instead offset it, planting replacement trees to the same value. The neighbours excuse was that he didn't like that tree. As my surf buddy said, that's irrelevant. The birds and insects like that tree. The bloody biodiversity of the area like that tree. The enchanted forest likes that tree. If it's in your view, fuck you. Seriously. There's things far, far more important than you.

The council arborist who came out to talk to us said there's quite a lot of incidents like this. I just feel so full of rage towards such idiots, and devastated too. This beautiful wild place we live in is turning into an insane metropolis where people move down here for the nature and proceed to destroy it.

Fuckety fuck fuck fuck.