Australian workers chop down 140 trees ruining 13-year-long study

[Evil Eye]

The University of Adelaide says the razing of the fenced-off trees completely destroyed its research and has sued the contractor for more than $AUS1 million (£643,000).



The trees were being used to find a cure for Mundulla Yellows disease, an affliction which kills eucalypts and has spread across the entire country since the 1970s from the small town of Mundulla in South Australia.



When you have researchers that have put 13 years into a single experiment, to see the damage done in this way is absolutely devastating, said Prof Mike Brooks, the university's deputy vice-chancellor for research.



In a statement of claim filed in South Australia's Supreme Court, the university says the maintenance workers went to cut down excess wood in November last year and ignored orders not to enter the research plot.



It says the workers cut down 141 trees, damaged the trunks of five others and removed metal tags showing the health of the plants.



The research plot was planted in a scientific pattern to allow the measurement of the spread of an unknown pathogen thought to cause Mundulla Yellows disease, the statement of claim says.



The university's research ... is wholly lost and incapable of being made good except by replanting the research plot on a scale at least 50 per cent larger than the research plot destroyed.



The contractor said it was not responsible for the actions of its subcontractors but denied that the university issued orders not to enter the plot, according to a report in The Adelaide Advertiser.



The university has claimed that two trees were originally cut down in 2008, leading to an official order banning workers from entering the research plot without being accompanied by a university staff member.

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/...hop-down-140-trees-in-13-year-long-study.html





Time to start another patch somewhere safer...