From the desk of Roland Rocchiccioli

The more one sees and reads, the more one is convinced our lives are being controlled by characters who are, at best, average in every aspect. Some might be branded fools!

That an 800-year old Peppermint tree in Western Australia has been cut-down as a consequence of a miscommunication with an arborist is too ridiculous to suppose. It is tantamount to a classical actor being told to dust Shakespeare’s First Folios in the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington DC, and instead, mistakenly, tossing them into a roaring fire.

In 1999, Western Australia’s 800-year old Peppermint Willow faced destruction and was saved from logging by the hindering efforts of the former Greens’ leader, Bob Brown. In this instance, the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions confirmed a contractor was engaged to trim the tree and was, subsequently, responsible for its total destruction. Reasonably, it is being asked why it would be necessary to trim an 800-year-old tree. If, as they posited, its falling branches presented a danger to the public, they could have constructed a fence to prevent any mishaps. Was the contractor a qualified arborist, or a tradesman with a chainsaw?

However, we should not be too astonished at the environmental vandalism. In 2021, several of Ballarat’s councillors voted for the removal of a 150-year-old Marri tree to make way for the construction of a wrought iron fence. They argued, nonsensically, the tree would die somewhere in the next 150-years so let us not be too fussed about hastening the process!

I recall being with the late 11th Duke of Marlborough at Blenheim Palace only days after a freak storm felled hundreds of 600-year-old oaks on his estate. Some of the uprooted 300-year-old trees had been planted by Capability Brown. The Nation was in mourning at the natural disaster.

To put the Peppermint Willow into a time perspective, it reaches back to the 13th century; to when Genghis Khan was declared Great Khan of the Mongols; Saint Francis of Assisi founded the Franciscan Order of monks; Dominican theologian Thomas Aquinas wrote his Summa Theologiae; and King John signed the Magna Carta at Runnymede.

As cathedrals, mosques, temples, and tabernacles, are considered sacred, so, too, this peppermint eucalypt was sacred to Noongar people. The aggregate is decidedly imbalanced: if it is possible to be arrested for protecting a tree; conversely, the same should apply for the destruction thereof. Sadly, there is lack of political willing exacerbated by a fear of the timber industry’s influence.

In Western Australia, 2020, Juukan sacred rock shelter in the Pilbara was destroyed by Rio Tinto. An archaeology report deemed it of the highest archaeological significance containing a cultural sequence spanning over 40,000 years; a high frequency of flaked-stone artefacts, rare abundance of faunal remains, unique stone tools, preserved human hair; and with sediment containing a pollen record charting thousands of years of environmental changes. It was our only inland site showing signs of continual human occupation through the last Ice Age.

Rio Tinto knew the significance of the rock caves six-years before. In minutes, eight-million-tonnes of ore were blasted from the earth, and 46,000-years of cultural heritage was destroyed. Rio Tinto lawfully gained access to $135-million dollars of high-grade iron ore.

If we are not a nation of barbarians, then certainly we are recidivistic, environmental recalcitrants when it comes to protecting our few antiquities.

Let the peppermint tree be the last example of our gross philistinism.

Roland joins Brett Macdonald radio 3BA 10.45 Monday morning. Contact : [email protected]