I think the low, shrubby stuff is mangrove too. Mangrove can appear to be shrubby or tree-like; I think they counted all the shrubs as trees. There certainly weren't 100+ full blown trees removed if the picture is showing the extent of what was removed.
I undertstand the environmental imperative to protect mangroves; but that fine is far too high for the removal of such a small amount of them. A brief googling for other instances of illegal mangrove cutting reveal that this fine is far out of line with what others have had to pay for similar violations, for example:
Condo nets $1450 fine for cutting mangroves
Fiddler's Green Condominium Association must plant 324 trees-- three for every one cut.
Fiddler's Green Condominium Association will have to pay $1450 in penalties for trimming 108 mangroves along Lemon Creek in Placida
Florida Department of Environmental Protection recently sent the association a letter outlining corrective measures the association must take to restore mangroves that spanned 675 square feet of shoreline.
...
The mangroves, which ranged from 8 to 15 feet tall, were cut to about 18 inches, which will probably kill the trees' roots...
So,here we have a case where almost exactly the same number of mangroves was cut, but the fine is less than 1/1000th as much!
What if a community created an ordinance that established fines for speeding that were 1000 times as much as an average speeding ticket? Would that be fair for someone to get a $200,000 speeding ticket, just because they got caught speeding in the wrong place?
to post a reply:
login - or -
register