Vandals take axe to Botanic Gardens (VIC)

[Moses]

they should be jailed for the exact amount of time it takes for the damaged plants to grow back to original pre-damaged size , and fined the value of replacing fully matured specimens.

[incognito]

Wow that's a bit extreme lol

I reckon community service within the bot garden, national park in the are etc would be sufficient. And a donation relative to perpetrators income to assist with growing medium, ferts, labour etc required in re-establishing the plants. If they are minors It would be good if they where made to assist with the re-establishment as well, they may hopefully learn how stupid it was, and PERHAPS gain an appreciation for horticulture, get some skills they can use later on finding employment etc

Etc

I really don't think jail would grow the cacti back any bigger. If they are half decent hortys they will grow the garden back bigger and better, put some form if security measures and stop being such freakin pretentious green thumb sooks.

I have worked in bot gardens before and seriously some of the overly passionate toffs that are in charge have a serious holier than though assumption. At the end of the day they are just some cacti, possibly the hardiest most forgiving and easiest to propagate plants in the world.

End advise- get a grip, work on security, get over it and make the garden better than ever, possibly with the assistance of the perpetrators.-

[hypnotoad]

I blame muslims, synthetic drugs, homosexuals, global warming and ethnic crime gangs.

We can easily fix this problem by invading a distant, peaceful, independent country with religious differences.

Duh!

[Mycot]

Read the shocking title.

This looks like the work of anti-life people.

The same type of people that want to ban a good number of Australian and other plants and any compund they don't know much about.

[Change]

Boat people are killing our cactus

[Stillman]

and the bikies don't forget the bikies.

[bogfrog]

Some fuckwit just smashed up the cacti glasshouse at my local botanic gardens last night

Is this becoming a trend or something!?

Edit: my partner works in the cactus house and said that no cacti were hacked up which is good.

But the pricks had to go and smash 13 big windows didnt they!

Why do people want to destroy the things that being other people happiness?

Edited July 5, 2013 by bogfrog

[Yawning Man]

Sounds like a bunch of punks who just wanted to break things Bogfrog. Unfortunately this particular glasshouse housed cacti. It's pretty senseless, and I see no rationale in it other than lets break things coz it's fun and we wont get caught.

Did they ever catch the people who hacked up the cacti? I hope so.

[Yeti101]

WTF is going on down there in Melbourne? http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-21/vandals-attack-historic-trees-at-melbourne-botanic-gardens/4833430

[nothinghead]

Is this what they mean when they talk about 'eco-terrorism'?

[whitewind]

Haha. Our shock and horror at vandals taking an aze to a few non-native trees in the heart of a city.. I was trying to figure out the psyche of such people, and then I got to thinking about something I saw a lot of a few years back which kind of put a different perspective on it.

I was travelling between Mullum and Sydney a lot, and they were widening the Pacific Highway to ease traffic flow, and straighten it out, so for kilometers I would see vast strips of land being cleared. It was all pretty much regrowth forest so the trees were densely packed and quite small, but if you can imagine one small (3-5 metres tall) tree per couple of square metres in a strip 10-20metres wide for about 20 kilometres at a time, all ripped up and thrown on to piles, you can imagine how much dead organic matter there was and how angry I got. There must have been millions of small trees uprooted and the land covered in concrete and tar. There was at least one stretch that went through a sacred Aboriginal site, and countless that must have gone through important ecosystems - yes I know there is a planning permission process, but you know how they work.

Think about it a bit. This highway runs north to south, cutting off all the coastal ecosystems from the ones inland, and this project meant a widening and increased flow of traffic, making it harder for many species to pass between them, increasing air pollution and noise.

All in the name of increasing the number of cars and trucks in an era where peak oil is a distinct and problematic reality, where climate change means ecosystems and individual species are more vulnerable and may find existing land untenable to live, so may need to travel to find new habitat to live.

This kind of clearing is also done regularly by farmers, and so much land has been cleared of trees it's almost unfathomable to think of how much ecosystem devastation has been done by farming (and forestry) in Australia over the past couple of hundred years, the land nowadays is almost desert-like in comparison, with a few grasses, shrubs and scrubby plants interspersed by a few remnant trees which aren't allowed to reproduce and live too far away from each other to share insects, fungi and other tiny, ignored species.

Our ecosystems have been devastated, and we worry about a few - probably not even native - trees in a botanical garden in the heart of a city-desert.

We are a weird species, that's for sure.

[incognito]

I was one of the dudes ripping out them trees.

We took seed from them and planted the roadsides back out with seedlings but the company failed to keep water up to them and most died.

[incognito]

Was from ballina through Brunswick heads and a little further beyond. Ironically it was me (the only white boy in the group) and a team of bundjalung boys from cabbage tree island. The comradere was like nothing I've ever experienced. EVERYTHING was shared. Shit of a job but as an aside when that job was over we regenerated bundjalung sacred sites.

[Francois le Danque]

Think about it a bit. This highway runs north to south, cutting off all the coastal ecosystems from the ones inland, and this project meant a widening and increased flow of traffic, making it harder for many species to pass between them, increasing air pollution and noise.

All in the name of increasing the number of cars and trucks in an era where peak oil is a distinct and problematic reality, where climate change means ecosystems and individual species are more vulnerable and may find existing land untenable to live, so may need to travel to find new habitat to live.

So like, you were in a car right? So you are one of the people creating demand for such projects. I am certain you are a good and sustainability-minded person WW (not having a go here), but the fact remains: increased public transport patronage decreases environmental destruction.

I hate roads

[incognito]

Lol we used to get food and rocks and abuse thrown at us by northern rivers hippies using the very road in their old vw's spewing out black smoke. One was game enough to pull up and hurl some psychobabble until a 110 kg bundjalung lad walked up the bank needless to say he didn't want to hang around and discuss the finer points.

[obtuse]

increased public transport patronage decreases environmental destruction.

I hate roads

Me too. I get fed up daily by the number of people driving to work in their cars alone. I sit in my bus and must see heaps on a daily basis, annoys the crap out of me.

we should seriously hike petrol prices to force people to use public transport.

acknowledged it is my dilemma that we have use cars and travel long distances to do what we have to do.

Edited July 24, 2013 by obtuse

[incognito]

No such thing as public transport out here in the bush and we pay around 10c more a litre than the city slickers, plus we all have to travel 30mins to an hr to work. Poor ol' bushies

[whitewind]

It was temporary situation Frank and I didn't like doing it. Truth is I would prefer trains but they stopped at Lismore it was a real pain. Took the train a bit too. Also, we can go into transport heaps but essentially the government provides a free ( taxpayer funded) subsidy to oil and automotive industry in the trillions which could of course fund alternative transport eg proper train services.

Incog I font hate you for working in a job like that we must all make ends meet and I'm no angel. It's the government and in particular the economic system which is at fault. We need to change it and soon!

[theuserformallyknownasd00d]

Imagine if the title was 'vandals take a SAX to the botanic gardens'... Sax and cactus mmmm....

[incognito]

That piece of road claimed ALOT of people's lives before they fixed it up.

[whitewind]

Or was it the automobile industry to blame?

[incognito]

? I dunno the rat had a campaign the "save our bloody roads" thing that lobbied gov to spend money on roads that where taking alot of lives. That particular stretch was dodgy as fuk.

[Scarecrow]

No such thing as public transport out here in the bush and we pay around 10c more a litre than the city slickers, plus we all have to travel 30mins to an hr to work. Poor ol' bushies

horses?

horses.

[whitewind]

No such thing as public transport out here in the bush and we pay around 10c more a litre than the city slickers, plus we all have to travel 30mins to an hr to work. Poor ol' bushies

Offset by the minimal rent you pay and the clean air you breathe, plus the views! Poor old city slickers lol

[AndyAmine.]

I saw big runs of obtusifolia being cut back during that project.
Particularly on that side road that runs between the Hwy and the coast line. was that also a part of the project?