Google Street View Catches Alleged Tree Killer

switched.com:

Back in the day, all you needed to break open a court case was some modicum of logical argumentation, and Gregory Peck's voice. Fast forward to 2010. Exit Atticus Finch, and enter Google's Street View.

As Wired reports, Margaret Burnyeat, of Vancouver, Canada, was charged last year with the illegal removal of trees, after allegedly hiring a company to chop down some 23 cedar, cypress and evergreen trees from her property. Police had found evidence of a few stumps in her frontyard, but Burnyeat's goose wasn't cooked until someone happened to take a gander at Google.

Read the whole story: switched.com

Comments

[joelaf]

08:48 AM on 02/03/2010

In my community, you need a permit to cut any tree larger in diameter than a dinner plate.

[Artos]

09:11 PM on 02/02/2010

When did it become illegal to cut down trees from your own property? Has anyone taken a gander at Some of Canadas hinterlands recently. Check out middle to northern B.C. or Alberta Provinces. They look like a patchwork quilt. That should be illlegal, but this is what is so typical.Corporations can chop down whatever they want with hardly any Government interference but let average citizen do it and guess what , more revenue for the government from fines levied. This is equal justice?

[Ivriniel]

11:51 PM on 02/02/2010

First off, do you know anything about the process by which logging permits are granted? Companies have to file plans and pay a stumpage fee, as well as have a rehabilitation plan for when the logging is done.

Secondly, it's rather commonplace to require people to get permits to take down trees on their property. It's to ensure that the tree is actually on their property for starters. Also when trees are cut down in residential areas, they can impact more than just the person who's property they are on.

[Tommygun264]

05:14 AM on 02/03/2010

The "they do it, so why can't I" defense doesn't wash. Japan kills whales, but that doesn't give me the right to go out and kill a whale. The idea is to restrict the people who are ignoring what is better for the environment, not to do the same as them because they are getting away with it. Restrictions about tree cutting depends on the zoning and the reasons behind it. Here in Honolulu where our fresh water comes from rainwater that has percolated down through the soil and lava rock and come to form a lens-shaped layer of fresh water that lays on top of the ocean's salt water in a cavern under the island of Oahu, landowners who live in the watershed area along the upper mountain ridges are restricted as to the size and number of trees they can remove, not to protect logging interests, but to protect the watershed and prevent erosion. The trees ensure that more water will be retained and percolate downward to the water supply and less will run downhill and into streams that flow into the ocean to mix with salt water. Land use ordinances are not always linked to conspiracies to rob you of your enjoyment of killing things.

[Artos]

08:28 AM on 02/03/2010

Neither if you answered my comment to any degree of satisfaction. What I asked is why are Logging companies permitted to lay waste to large swathes of land as can be plainly seen if you visit Google as I recommended, yet Politicians will find every way in the world to extort from the average citizen and they are right there in our pockets. I am well acquainted with ecology and have a healthy respect for it, that is not my argument here. I don't necessarily agree with this woman chopping down trees, no but what I resent even more is the double standards that work in our societies. I resent even more be told what I can and can't do on my own property. There are many things that need doing in our nation of far greater importance than what that woman did to her own trees, and yet they aren't getting done. The reason, because our governments work for the Corporations and not for us, and they are busily at work seeing to the welfare of the Corporations and the average Citizen is getting short shrift. So unless you are willing to address that issue then go lecture someone else.

[Norak]

06:55 PM on 02/02/2010

I hope she is fined heavily and made to re-plant. However, if they have no video of her workmen actually cutting the trees down, I'm doubtful they can make a case hold up.

[Ivriniel]

11:52 PM on 02/02/2010

They have stumps on her property. Clearly the trees were cut down. Unless she's going to argue that random people turned up and cut down 21 trees without her knowledge, she doesn't have a leg to stand on. Even then, I doubt a jury would believe that defense.

[shthar]

04:10 AM on 02/03/2010

You fail to rember the golden thread of reasonable doubt, that is the keystone of the justice system in the commonwealth.

I rest my case, right here.