General News
31 August, 2025
Fig trees to be chopped
A VALIANT effort by four Cairns regional councillors to save three fig trees from a developer’s axe at White Rock has failed.
Despite passionate pleas at a council meeting on Wednesday by divisional councillor Cathy Zeiger, Mayor Amy Eden, Anna Middleton and Rob Pyne, the six other councillors backed a council report recommending the destruction of more than 10 trees, including the figs, in Links Drive to make way for a 45-lot subdivision by Kenfrost Homes. The development was later approved by the council 6-4.
Cairns Local News first reported on the community’s concern about the trees’ future in November last year when a campaign was launched to try to keep the specimens intact near Cairns Golf Club.
Cr Matthew Tickner kicked off the heated debate on Wednesday, by moving the recommendation that the trees be chopped down.
He said stopping the development because of the three large fig trees would set a precedent.
“You either don’t develop the lot, and it stays an empty lot with three big trees on it, or you develop and you remove the trees,” Cr Tickner said.“But if we want more housing in the city, we can’t stand on a hill every single time a nice tree comes up and say, ‘Oh, we can’t touch the tree because it’s a nice tree’.”
Division 3 councillor Cathy Zeiger staunchly opposed the proposal, questioning elements of the arborist’s report. “Ironically, this estate is to be named the Fig Tree Estate,” she said.
“So perhaps if this goes through it will be called the No Fig Trees Estate.”
Ms Zeiger said, after visiting the site with officers, the project would have a significant environmental impact on the area’s wildlife.
“As I stood on site with the officers, I commented that the immense number of birds in the main fig tree were making such a noise, it drowned out the highway noise,” she said.
“I disagree with the statement that the existing vegetation is not a high value ecological corridor or habitat area.
“How sad it would be, to say, as the song goes, ‘they paved paradise and put up a parking lot’.”
Leaving the trees would cause major damage to infrastructure, lifting pipes and pavement, Cr Kristy Vallely said.
Deputy mayor Brett Olds said if the recommendation was rejected the council could spend up to $1m fighting the application in the planning and environment court.
“We’ve got people here who are going to put in 45 houses,” he said.
Division 5 councillor Rob Pyne said approving the project did not reflect the council’s policies on tropical design and mitigating urban heat.
Tree supporters, resident Dorothea Grey and CAFNEC community organiser Monique Jeffs, attended the meeting with protest banners.
Ms Grey said she was “disgusted” with the decision and predicted residents of the 45 houses would “cook in the heat” without the trees cooling properties. Ms Jeffs said the community was “outraged that the council has given approval to Kenfrost to cut down three significant fig trees in White Rock”.
“The White Rock suburb is a snapshot of what’s happening all across Cairns: bit by bit, developers are chipping away at our urban shade and greenery, one development at a time,” she said.
“The tensions evident in the councillors’ debate … demonstrated the need for planning reform.”
Ms Jeffs said CAFNEC would work with the council on its tropical urbanism vision.
