School wants to fell tree it fears is a risk, but some experts disagree

Government officials will meet leaders of Maryknoll Convent School next week in a last-ditch effort to find ways to save a landmark Norfolk Island pine the school says must be cut down to protect public safety.

The intervention came after conflicting professional views from tree experts from the private sector, a green group and the government itself in the past eight months over the health of the leaning 70-year-old tree.

The pine was due to be cut down on July 27 after no objection was raised by the government. But more than 1,000 ex-students of the school in Waterloo Road have joined an internet campaign to save what they have dubbed the 'ghost tree'.

As the tree was on a private plot, the school still had the final say on the tree's fate.

The 20-metre-tall tree is close to a classroom building in the primary section, which is next to Waterloo Road. It has had a slight lean for years but its growth has been unaffected.

Principal Josephine Lo Tsang Git-ging said it was a 'painful decision' to kill a tree treasured by pupils and alumni, but public safety had to be given top priority.

'The Maryknoll sisters love the tree too but they love their students even more,' she said, adding that their worries were aggravated by the death of a young woman under a tree that fell in Stanley last year.