It usually takes a lot to make Roger Jones angry, but when he found trees on Richmond’s newly-planted edible walk bowled by a quad bike he had good reason to be angry.
The 74-year-old and friends only finished planting the trees a few weeks ago and already a section has been vandalised.
The trees are planted along 536m of grass beside the Great Taste Trail near Three Brothers Corner as it heads toward Brightwater.
He says it appears someone has driven at speed on a quad bike straight over the lines of trees, snapping wooden stakes and damaging trees.
Incredibly, most of the trees have been scraped down their trunks by the bike and would have been almost flattened but seem to have survived, though some have been totally destroyed.
The first Roger knew of the vandalism was when he visited the trees on Saturday, 2 September and saw broken stakes scattered over the area and several trees looking the worse for wear. Most are fruit trees and a line of liquid ambers was also in the driver’s destructive path.
“I was angry and it takes a lot to make me angry. I was at a loss as to what to do.”
He took photos of the wheel marks on the grass where the vehicle had been driven over the trees and he says they look like the tracks of a quad bike. He assumes the vandalism was done sometime on the Friday night and he has provided an incident report to the police.
“He has done it at speed because you can tell the posts have been thrown through the air.”
Roger estimates about $1,000 worth of damage has been done by adding up the trees, stakes and putting a figure on the time to plant them.
Two hundred of the trees were donated from local nurseries and he grew more himself, but it still takes time, he says.
What really frustrates him is that the trees have been planted for the community and he says the community has already expressed its outrage in response to his Facebook post about the vandalism.
“When I put this on Facebook, people went mad.”
He will look into installing cameras to help deter vandals or help identify them if they return. He also plans to continue planting trees along the trail toward Brightwater.
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So far, the plantings feature different varieties of fruit including peach, nectarine and apple, with figs, feijoas, blackcurrants, and redcurrants. Where power lines are not an issue, liquid ambers and a couple of pohutukawa have been planted.
Roger is more worried about future vandalism than the proposed Hope Bypass replacing the trees which he doubts will become a reality.
