Essay by Eric Worrall

Hint – they are blocking the view.

Extreme weather and vandalism impact beachfront Norfolk Island pines

In short: 

Norfolk Island pine trees have become a feature of Australia’s coastline but they are at risk from a number of factors. 

A Gold Coast researcher says a severe weather-fuelled fungus and urban stresses are infecting pines across the city.

What’s next? 

A horticulturist says he is more worried that the trees are being chopped down or poisoned for the sake of residents’ views. 

…

One cause of the trees’ ill health is a nasty fungus from the Botryosphaeriaceae family.

Ms Petrova said it thrived in dry environments and spread through Burleigh Heads’ pine population in the 2018-2019 drought.

…

Ms Petrova said more extreme weather due to climate change, including drought, could be increasing fungal growth.

…

He said he was increasingly being called to pines that had been purposely poisoned.

“We’re talking about 60 to 80 trees at a time being poisoned, huge areas of beach fronts all around Sydney Harbour,” Mr Varley said.

…

Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-26/extreme-weather-vandalism-impact-norfolk-island-pine-trees/104949926

Norfolk Island Pines, an evolutionary cousin of Hoop Pines, are tropical weather loving trees which grow to enormous heights in poor quality salty beach soil. They are capable of thriving from the cold southern end of Australia all the way into the far North. They are also grown in Hawaii and other warm weather locations.

Local governments love them because their strong root structure stabilises the beach.

Million dollar beachfront property owners not so much – because that beautiful view you fell in love with in many cases has been obscured by tree hugging councils who seem to think taller is better.

They are beautiful trees – tall, lots of shade, and a soft bed of pine needles supplied with every tree, great homes for Australia’s beautiful songbirds, and a place for young people who want a little privacy. The trees are resilient – they don’t mind being topped to keep the height down.

But Australia’s local governments over the past few decades seem to have forgotten that part of the social contract, beachfront trees nowadays tower over many of Australia’s favourite swimming spots.

Even in my area trees have been poisoned.

It is a difficult crime to solve. In many cases it might be difficult to detect – clever tree killers wouldn’t drill holes in the trees, they would use a sprinkle of readily available heavy metal sulphate poison which reacts with salt in the ground to form almost insoluble chloride salts, a chemical which due to insolubility has good residence in salty soil, exhibits high plant toxicity without being a serious poisoning risk for humans in the quantities used, and which would cause the tree to become distressed rather than instantly killing it, leading the tree to apparently die a natural death, losing its foliage and succumbing to fungal infections. An added bonus for the tree murderer, the residual poison in the soil would also kill whatever the local government planted to replace the dead tree.

I wonder if I just solved the mystery? Maybe it isn’t climate change after all.