Ed, I’ve been doing some figures in relation to the petition of the Maclean Community to CVC in relation to saving the Camphor Laurel trees. According to the 2011 census MacLean’s’ population was 2,600. This means that a petition containing 1,500 signatures from the community represents 57.7% of the community. The 2011 Census puts the population of ‘North Grafton’ aka Grafton excluding South Grafton at 10,038 57.7% of this population is 5,791. How can CVC ignore Maclean when 57.7 of the community wanted the trees retained? Would they take the same approach to a petition from North Grafton containing 5,791 signatures? Or is this a case of disregarding a community group because of its’ smaller population size? I know we’ve traditionally had a division of up river and down river folk, the silver lining of the CVC’s dismissive attitude to the Camphor Laurel ‘issue’ is that they’ve brought the up river and down river communities together. Many of us in the up river community are as dismayed as those down river community by CVC’s actions in relation to this issue, purely as a matter of principal. And for those who want to run the ‘Camphor Laurel’s’ are weeds aka not native, perhaps they should apply the same logic to the human beings who are not native to this land? Ursula Tunks, South Grafton