My city charges between $500 and $2,000 (depending on tree size) per caliper inch of illegally removed trees.
A single tree can cost double this fine.
I miss the treble damage tree law stories
Yep. They got off amazingly cheap. I would have expected at least a thousand per tree.
Nice! May I ask where?
No, sorry. I’ve shared enough on Lemmy about my job that naming the place would reveal my identity easily to anyone looking.
I get it. If I shared certain experiences, I’d be doxxed as well.
Is that for on private land? Because this was on state land
Anywhere.
$35k isn’t very much.
Each of them can’t afford half a honda accord now. I’m sure they’ll remember this forever.
if someone hit me with thirty five grand in fines in my current circumstances…
fuck
only $107 per tree
feels a small tax for a business
Specific performance. They should be required to replace 300 equivalent trees. This is BS.
Generally mature trees cannot be realistically replaced.
Yay! Someone that gets a tree isn’t just a tree!
https://oaklandside.org/2026/05/05/trees-illegally-cut-fine-oakland/
In Oakland, CA, they fined a couple $915K for cutting down 38 trees. These guys got off easy.
Assholes like this do the same shit in the forests around. Which happens to be a national park and nature reserve.
And they are actually pissed when those trails get removed again.
Not enough of a fine.
In percentage of income after taxes and bills, I wonder how that compares to Google or Meta fines?
It’s marked as not available in my region. Probably GDPR related
Two Vermont men have agreed to pay $35,000 and remove unauthorized trail features after state officials alleged they illegally built mountain bike trails in Mt. Mansfield State Forest, the Vermont Attorney General’s Office announced.
Attorney General Charity Clark said Cyril Brunner and Aaron Rice settled allegations that they unlawfully constructed approximately 8,000 feet of mountain bike trails in the state forest in Stowe between 2016 and 2021.
“No one should be treating state land and state forests like their backyard,” the attorney general said Wednesday.
An investigation by the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources found the men cut down about 327 trees and permanently altered rocks by drilling holes to anchor wooden trail crossings, according to the settlement.
“The investigation was probably done by the Agency of Natural Resources and they referred the case to us,” said Clark. “We get this information about what had happened and then take the steps we need to hold the bad actors accountable for the timber trespass.”
Under the agreement, Brunner and Rice will pay $35,000 in timber trespass damages and remove any remaining constructed features associated with the trails.
The Attorney General’s Office said the men also installed ‘No Strava’ signs which the Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation said made it more difficult for them to identify the trail once it was discovered.
“We manage thousands of acres of forest and they clearly were able to go into the forest without us noticing,” said Claire Polfus, a recreation program manager for FPR. “Our forests are open to the public, and it’s not against the rules to access our forests. We didn’t have anyone in that particular area in that time.”
Part of the settlement will go toward the final restoration projects.
“The local mountain bike chapter, which was not involved in the building of the trail, stepped up to help us restore the majority of the trail,” Polfus said. “The last remaining issues, they didn’t have the skills to to fix, which was the rebar in the rocks, so that’s part of the settlement. Once that that is completed, the restoration will be complete.”
Danielle Fitzko, commissioner of the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation, said recreation projects on state lands are developed through established planning and public engagement processes to balance outdoor access with wildlife habitat, flood resilience and sustainable forest management.
If you want a trail to be created, ANR says the best way to do that is joining a local recreation club. Many of them have partnerships with ANR and can help submit a request.
“It’s worth noting that, historically, there have long been trails that folks have blazed to some degree or another, on public land,” said the Vermont Mountain Bike Association executive director, Nick Bennette. “It’s part of FPR policy the importance of people staying on, properly constructed, officially designated trails. I think this stands out in certainly in terms of sort of this illegal and inappropriate use of public land without public input.”
The settlement was approved by the Lamoille Superior Court on June 29. The Attorney General’s Office announced the settlement Tuesday.
should of said it was for a data centee
The world needs more mountain bike trails. Officials said they had a hard time even finding out about the trails or knowing where they were. Doesn’t sound like a very big deal to me.
The world also needs more trees, and wildlife needs more places where they can do there thing without having to worry about humans running them over.
I’m all for mountain biking, it’s a great hobby, but conservation is more important.
Officials said they had a hard time even finding out about the trails or knowing where they were.
that’s exactly the problem. the reason those officials’ jobs exist is to keep people safe in the park. if people get lost or hurt and officials don’t know where they might be or how to get to them, or that they even exist, then they can’t get them help. there are official channels they could have gone through to request new trails, which the park could then maintain and support, in addition to ensuring that they’re made in a way that’s minimally invasive to the environment
