President Street trees under attack

PEOPLE remark on Vryheid’s trees when they come to this town. They admire the shady avenues like you find in Bree Street and Boeren Street, and one of the longer stretches of tree-lined street is President Street, between Boeren and South streets. It is a real arbour in summer, a tunnel of leaves from one end to the other. Few of the trees on Vryheid’s pavements and sidewalks are indigenous. And few of the trees on the pavements and sidewalks were not planted decades ago, in a determined effort to better the environment, and at the time knowing nothing of ozone layers and greenhouse gasses. But someone, perhaps a committee on the town council, decided to plant trees in our residential areas, money was allocated, holes were dug, saplings were planted, and years later, today, we reap the benefits. It has taken many decades for our trees to reach the maturity that they exhibit today. And there are very definite benefits. But, it would appear that someone doesn’t like trees. President Street where it intersects with Boeren used to be the start of an avenue of plane trees. A photograph taken in March 2012 clearly show it. A picture taken today shows a completely different story. The first 11 trees in the street are dead or dying. Someone, in the opinion of Cllr Harry Heyns and retired EKZN Wildlife District Conservator Alex Wood, has deliberately poisoned these trees. They now constitute a hazard and will have to be chopped down. An estimated 60 years of growth will disappear in a morning.

If new trees were immediately planted, children living in the vicinity would be on pension before the new trees reached the maturity of the old, now dead ones. Nothing, obviously, can be proved, but it is an offence to interfere with any tree, in any way, on the sidewalks. People caught doing so, will be prosecuted, says Cllr Heyns, who also expressed his sadness at the destruction of these trees.