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Canossa Hospital fined for hatchet job on banyan tree

Canossa Hospital in Mid-Levels has been ordered by the Lands Department to pay a HK$200,000 fine for unauthorised pruning of a tree obstructing construction of a new extension.

In addition to the fine, the hospital has to pay a HK$39,100 administration fee for what the department said was 'retrospective consent' for the excessive pruning of a Chinese banyan tree next to the construction site.

The department said its newly formed tree unit concluded that the pruning breached tree trimming guidelines issued by the Development Bureau, and consequently Canossa violated a tree preservation clause under the land lease for the hospital's extension.

The department had approved a tree pruning proposal submitted by the hospital in 2008 but when the trimming was carried out earlier this year, the cutting was on a scale far greater than what the proposal recommended.

Ken So Kwok-yin, chief executive of the Conservancy Association, estimated that half of the tree was poorly pruned, exceeding the normal practice of no more than 20 per cent. He said the tree could become unstable, unhealthy and a threat to public safety because its cuts were so large and it had lost so much foliage and major branches.

Apart from the fine, lands officials also ordered the hospital to stop further pruning of the tree for at least 12 months so that it can recover. It also asked Canossa to remove all the scaffolding around the tree.

Tree conservationists applauded the penalties imposed on the hospital, saying they were a public warning that improper tree pruning - either intentional or through unprofessional practice - should not be tolerated.

'It is rather uncommon for the Lands Department to penalise anybody for excessive tree pruning. In the past, it only imposed them when trees were chopped without prior permission,' So said.

In 2006, about 200 trees at Leung King Estate in Tuen Mun were heavily pruned by its management firm Synergies which cited safety concerns.

The trimming was later found to have breached the land lease's tree protection clause but the Lands Department at that time did nothing except ask the firm to replant the trees.

University of Hong Kong tree expert Jim Chi-yung said the decades-old tree was unnecessarily pruned and the trimming was 'barbaric treatment', with major and healthy branches removed.

'The pruning was likely to have been done cheaply, fast and in an unprofessional manner. Workers might have waved the saw randomly and failed to focus on weak and dead branches,' he said.

Jim questioned whether landscaping firms operating in the city were qualified to carry out the works and whether they were adhering to international standards.

But So said the Canossa case highlighted how tree pruning works could be properly monitored and audited.

The pruning at the hospital worksite was first spotted in April by resident Melanie Moore who pressed the Lands Department to investigate. Moore said yesterday that the Canossa case was a 'public victory' for monitoring of environmental damage.

Sister Catherine Wu, the matron of Canossa, said she did not know about the penalties and the construction was managed by the architectural firm Chau Ku and Leung Architects and Engineers.

'I have never heard anything [about the penalty]. The matter is taken care of professionally and all the works are properly done,' Wu said.

An employee form the architectural firm responsible for the Canossa project would not say yesterday if they knew about the breaches.

He said the firm outsourced the hospital's tree management to a specialist consultancy, but he declined to reveal the consultant's name or qualifications.

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