Longueville Tree Vandalism: Gardener Convicted, Fined $187,500

The Land and Environment Court has fined a Sydney gardener $187,500 over the illegal clearing of 287 trees from the Woodford Bay foreshore at Longueville, closing the criminal case behind what Lane Cove Council called the worst act of environmental vandalism in its history.

In Lane Cove Council v Yi Wang, handed down on 6 August 2026, Justice Rachel Pepper convicted Yi Wang of three offences under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act after he pleaded guilty to all of them. The clearing took place over roughly two weeks in November 2023 and stripped about 1,210 square metres of Council owned foreshore bushland.

How it unfolded

Wang, a director of the landscaping business Sydney Garden Home, was first engaged to trim grass at a waterfront property on Lucretia Avenue. The court heard that the person who engaged him, Yao Wu, then asked him to cut the trees on the adjoining Council land. Wang said he could not cut them himself and referred Wu to another operator, Yuxing Liang, who felled the trees with a chainsaw.

Wang was far from a bystander. The court found he cleared the cut branches and foliage, carted the material to nearby waste depots, hired and directed the labourers, collected the cash payments and sent Wu near daily progress updates by WeChat, at times with photographs. The court heard the crew was paid in cash that was often left in a shoe at the front of the property for Wang to collect.

The backyard defence the court rejected

Wang argued he had relied on assurances that the land was part of the neighbouring backyard and that he had been negligent rather than reckless. Justice Pepper found the agreed facts did not support the claim that he had been given repeated backyard assurances. She did accept his conduct was negligent rather than reckless, finding that a reasonable gardener with his experience would have checked with Council before clearing, and that a quick look at the Council website was not enough. She also found the offences were serious but not part of any organised criminal activity, and not carried out for financial gain.

The environmental toll

The judgment sets out just how much was lost. The cleared strip held three native vegetation communities, including a stand of Swamp Oak Forest that the court found exists nowhere else in Griffith Park. The clearing wiped out that entire local occurrence and significantly harmed an Endangered Ecological Community. The canopy had stood on the site since at least 1943 and the court heard it will take 20 to 30 years to recover.

The bushland was also habitat. The court heard the site provided foraging ground for threatened species including the Powerful Owl and several microbats, and that the loss of leaf litter left an Aboriginal shell midden on the land exposed and disturbed.

The penalty, and a very public order

Justice Pepper set a starting penalty of $150,000 for each of the three offences, discounted each by 25 per cent for the early guilty pleas, then adjusted for totality so the counts did not double up. The result was $112,500 for the public bushland offence, $50,000 for the tree preservation offence and $25,000 for the biodiversity offence, a total of $187,500 payable to Lane Cove Council.

Wang was also ordered to pay the Council’s legal costs and $11,660 in investigation costs. In an unusual step, the court ordered him to publish notices about the offence and its consequences, at his own expense, in the Sydney Morning Herald, the Daily Telegraph and Lane Cove’s own Village Observer within 28 days.

The judgment also notes that Wang assisted the Council in separate criminal proceedings against Yao Wu arising from the same clearing. Those proceedings are a separate matter.

How we got here

In the Cove has followed this story since it broke. Council was alerted by a member of the public on 23 November 2023 and immediately launched an investigation, describing it at the time as the worst act of environmental vandalism in Lane Cove’s history. Our original coverage is here.

Because clearing on public land is not handled by police, Council had to run its own investigation, which was slow and expensive. By mid 2024 it confirmed the investigation had already cost around $45,000, and that a person of interest had been identified as early as January 2024. Council has kept its own running account of the matter on its Tree Vandalism Update page.

The banner that made national news

While the case was being built, Council took a step that drew headlines around the country. In September 2024 it installed a double sided banner seven metres wide and two metres high on the foreshore, positioned to block the very harbour view the clearing appeared designed to create. The banner is set to stay until the vegetation regrows. That moment was covered by the Guardian, Nine, Seven and News Limited, and our report on it is here.

In the Cove’s coverage of the banner, September 2024.

Local advocacy, state action

The Longueville case also fed a broader push for tougher penalties. In April 2025 the NSW Government announced reforms to more than double fines for individuals and triple penalties for corporations, with harsher consequences for repeat offenders and for clearing in sensitive areas like foreshores and reserves. Lane Cove Mayor Merri Southwood welcomed the move and pointed to the Longueville destruction as evidence of why stronger protections were needed. She had raised the issue directly with the NSW Government, as recorded in the February 2025 Council report.

Does the penalty fit the crime

At $187,500 the fine dwarfs earlier tree clearing penalties in New South Wales. The comparable cases the court itself considered mostly landed between $8,000 and $93,500. Whether even a penalty this size deters view driven clearing in a suburb where a harbour outlook can add millions to a home is the question locals will keep asking. For now the banner still stands, the bushland is slowly regrowing, and a case that hung over the Woodford Bay foreshore for more than two years finally has an answer.