How ironic that a few weeks ago the NSW Dept of Health felled a 90-year-old Forest Red Gum (koala food tree that was being used by koalas) and two secondary koala trees (Scribbly Gum) to make way for a parking lot for the new HealthOne centre to be built on Elizabeth Street in Pottsville.
Do they not get the connection between why people are getting so sick and depressed and their profound disconnect to the natural world (called solistalgia – see http://neuroanthropology.net/2010/01/30/solastalgia-and-the-ecopsychology-of-our-changing-environment/ )?
How much better for people’s health for them to look out the window and see real live koalas in the trees around the health centre? Instead, the magnificent red gum was cut down. We wonder why the climate is so crazy and don’t connect it with the loss of trees because of humans making more homes for humans and taking away homes from wildlife.
Shame on our council for approving the felling of this tree in contravention of their Tree Preservation Order! For a paltry $50,000 to build a culvert on another street to be used as a road crossing elsewhere in exchange for the approval to fell, the koalas have been deprived of a food tree and a wildlife corridor that is critical to the survival of those koalas that once used it.
Please leave a comment on http://candobetter.net/node/2836.
Menkit Prince, Uki
