KEY POINTS:
Bah, humbug! Coromandel officials are tackling a Christmas tree massacre as wealthy property owners mutilate the area's pohutukawa to protect sea views. Almost two dozen trees on public land have been damaged or destroyed in the resort area between Whangamata and Whitianga this year.
And locals reckon it's Auckland "lifestylers" and out-of-town developers who are largely to blame.
"It's not them exclusively but, by and large, it is people who are coming in as investors, and they bring their own values with them," Thames Coromandel District Council's Mercury Bay field officer Louie Pooley said.
The problem was worst in areas with the highest coastal property prices and not restricted to pohutukawa, he said. "People come in and they buy the property for the sea view. They believe it gives them the right to the view and anything in that view.
"Generally, it's people who have little connection to the community."
Some were prepared to go to incredible lengths to retain their views of the sea, with most of the damage carried out under cover of darkness, Pooley said. Chainsaws were sometimes used in less public areas.
He cited the killing of a 12m Norfolk Pine at Gray's Beach on the northeast coast last month as one of the most "blatant" and "unbelievable" examples.
It was the last tree in a stand of pines and pohutukawa planted by a real estate agent in the 1970s. Pooley said it had been extensively ring-barked and several limbs had been hacked off. Seven holes were drilled in its trunk in an earlier attempt to kill it. The council did a leaflet drop asking people to dob-in suspects, and police were investigating.
Peter Wishart, the council's strategic relationship manager, said the sense of "entitlement" to views was frustrating.
Ironically, a recent survey of residents and ratepayers found the pohutukawa to be one of the area's most highly valued natural features.
They were also a tourist attraction, with a three-week pohutukawa festival held each November.
"But it seems there's this attitude that because a tree is on public land, then it's all right to remove it," Wishart said. "The fact is that public land is held in trust by the council for everyone's enjoyment.
"You wonder if the offending tree was on their neighbour's property, would they still do it?"
To try to stop the vandalism, the council had pruned trees deemed to be in "critical sight lines" several times. It could no longer afford to do so because funds were being diverted into replanting and repairing the damaged ones. Council staff were considering camera surveillance in the worst-hit areas.
Offenders prosecuted under local body bylaws face a maximum $20,000 fine. Those charged with intentional damage could be jailed for up to seven years.
TREE TROUBLES
* 2002: A Whangamata resident is ordered to pay $70,000 for removing a grove of rewarewa at the front of his property.
* 2004: A public outcry forces Wellington City Council to replant a large pohutukawa outside the Michael Fowler Centre instead of chopping it to make way for an emergency sewage tank.
* 2005: Birkenhead homeowner Ian Gillies finds himself forking out $7000 after lopping 3.5m off a protected kauri because it blocked his views of the sea. He has two similar convictions dating from 1996.
* 2006: Auckland property developer George Bernard Shaw is fined $80,000 after he paid contractors to fell a 100-year-old protected pohutukawa at his $2.2 million property in Royal Oak.
* 2007: Franklin Wayne Brown, a Hamilton businessman, escapes charges of wilful damage after chopping down three trees on a public reserve next to his home in August 2005, by agreeing to write a letter of apology and pay the city $5000.
