Here ye! Hear ye! Fellow civil servants of the Tree Taskforce:

As you know, there have been some changes around here about how we’re going to be regulating the city’s trees. These new regulations come after falling branches have killed innocent people, damaged luxury property and most seriously, caused an annoyance to a small handful of rich people. As the personal assistant to the Tree Tsar (The Grand High Duke of the Deciduous, The Lord of the Leaf... The Crown Prince of Photosynthesizing himself), I have outlined a few basic guidelines to help you decide which trees should be removed for public safety, and which should be conserved.

Any healthy tree should be saved whenever possible, except for in
the following circumstances:

•    It’s preventing a property developer from starting a particularly
profitable luxury residence project (remember: the economy is our priority, after all).

•    The League of Social Democrats have built a tree house in it, and are using it as an office, or Citizen’s Radio is broadcasting from it and stashing all their coolest candy there.

•    Its mighty girth is putting less well-endowed trees to shame.

•    The tree’s falling leaves are causing a minor inconvenience to someone wealthy.

On the other hand, old, sick trees should be dealt with on a case-by-
case basis, as these are the ones that are the most expensive to
look after. One should consider protecting certain specimens if the following applies:

•    A colony of cookie-baking elves have taken up residence in its trunk.

•    You see an opportunity to charge tourists money to throw old fruit at it.

•    A falling branch has only merely struck a passerby, but hasn’t killed them.

•    You can make out the likeness of a Cantopop celebrity in the bark.

•    Hippies have chained themselves to it (simply remove hippies first).

•    It identifies itself as “Treebeard”and takes you and a few friends on a magical journey of adventure, swashbuckling and self-discovery.
With these measures in place, I hope that we can look forward to a long and prosperous future working together on the Tree Taskforce.

Viva la Tree Tsar!