‘It's absolutely devastating': Urgent biosecurity warning for Sydney's street trees
Last month, the Western Australian government admitted it had lost a multimillion-dollar fight to eradicate the polyphagous shot-hole borer, a tiny beetle originally from South-East Asia that has devastated 4500 trees in Perth, including 20 towering much-loved figs that were chainsawed and mulched.
Now plant pathologist and chief scientist of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Professor Brett Summerell, has sounded the alarm over the urgent biosecurity threat the beetle poses to Sydney.
'I was just starting to do the numbers, and thinking about how much impact this could have if it got here was just absolutely devastating,' he said.
'We have a lot of heritage figs in the botanic gardens, Centennial Park, Hyde Park, pretty much in every major park and garden within Sydney is heavily populated with fig trees, which seem to be extremely susceptible to the beetle.'
Summerell's warning comes after senior botanist at Curtin University Professor Kingsley Dixon said no plant material from WA should be allowed into eastern Australia, fearing more trees would be 'king-hit'.
Many of the CBD's trees are plane trees which are also at risk of attack. Losing the trees would cause a massive loss of amenity and turbocharge urban heating; street trees slash summer temperatures in cities by as much as 12 degrees.
Figs, plane trees and box elder maples are all known targets alongside crops such as mango, macadamia, avocado and apple trees. Trees grown for timber, including ash, elms and oak, are also vulnerable.
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