On a balmy February evening in Sydney, a figure disguised in a black hoodie stole up to a row of iconic trees, drill in hand.

Under the cover of darkness, the man allegedly tried to kill nine of the beloved figs which have watched over Balmoral Beach for over a century.

“I get quite emotional actually,” local mayor Carolyn Corrigan says, recounting the attack.

“I close my eyes and I just can’t imagine Balmoral without those figs.”

In recent months, a string of similar incidents in some of Sydney’s leafiest and wealthiest suburbs has baffled a nation rather attached to its bushland.

Hundreds of trees have been ruthlessly cut down, drilled and laced with poison, or stripped bare – conveniently exposing the kind of harbour views that drastically increase property values.

“It’s selfishness and greed, there’s no other way to describe it,” says John Moratelli, who runs an environmental protection group.

“It’s just the worst of human nature really.”

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