Sydney gardener fined almost $200,000 for removing 287 trees to improve harbourside mansion’s water views

The native forest canopy that was cleared had stood since at least 1943 and included an ‘estuarine swamp oak endangered ecological community’. Photograph: supplied by Lane Cove council

It began with a gardener being hired to trim grass at a harbourside mansion in Sydney – and escalated to payments being left in a shoe for the unlawful felling of hundreds of native trees in protected bushland.

Now a court has fined Yi Wang $187,500 for his role in organising and carrying out the destruction of 287 trees from council-owned foreshore bushland at Woodford Bay in Longueville in late 2023.