After trees along Sydney’s Brighton-Le-Sands beach were hacked down and poisoned by unknown hands in January to open up the view, the local government responded in kind.

Bayside council, home to the industrial precinct around Port Botany, dropped a battered metal shipping container in front of the newly created view, and commissioned a local artist to decorate it with a mural of fairy wrens and native flora. It will remain there until replacement trees have grown, says mayor Edward McDougall.

Shipping containers are just one way Australian councils are responding to illegal tree removals on public land to improve views or boost house prices. Some hang banners or “shame signs” to block views, or spray-paint “POISONED” on the trunks of vandalised trees.

These attempts to fight illegal t

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