I wonder if the fines are enough, assuming they find the people? I've heard that it's cheaper or more profitable to just accept the fines.
Councils can issue a maximum on-the-spot fine of $3,000 for illegal tree removals by individuals, or $6,000 for businesses. Mr Wrightson said the council was getting legal advice about the best course of action, which could include seeking penalties of up to $1 million through a prosecution in the NSW Land and Environment Court.
300 tress x $6000 = $1.8million
That's big if you chopped the trees for one house, but what if you chopped them for 10? Perhaps you would still get more than $180,000 extra each if they had better views?
Yup. There's a reason that "forensic arborist" is an actual job title. Trees are worth way more than most people think.
My dad was a groundskeeper at a smallish local college that is somewhat known for its fairly large and diverse collection of trees. Nothing really exotic, just a wide variety of fairly normal trees that grow well in our climate. At one point a big landscaping company convinced someone on the college admin team to switch pesticides to their newer "green" pesticide. Well they went and treated a bunch of trees with this new pesticide and it wound up killing quite a few of the trees (probably not more than 20-25). The college wound up being awarded several $million in damages. US tree law is no joke.