Voice of Real Australia is a regular newsletter from ACM, which has journalists in every state and territory. Sign up here to get it by email, or here to forward it to a friend. Today's is written by ACM national agriculture writer Chris McLennan.
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Australia is awash with flooding rains.
King Vladimir Putin has a finger on the nuclear trigger.
Climate change is ruining our planet.
Yet the well-known shoe trees near Edenhope are causing a kerfuffle.
I had to laugh when I heard that news this week.
The world has lurched from COVID-19 into chaos but local issues are still top of mind.
I hadn't heard of the shoe tree just outside this town on the South Australian-Victoria border but I was not surprised.
There are bra and mug fences, thong trees, hat ceilings - all sorts of clothing displayed all across the country for the amusement of locals.
I've been to pubs with undies pinned to the roof as well, there's some Australiana for you.
Goodness, pretty soon they will be decorating the termite mounds alongside the Stuart Highway in the Northern Territory as they do each year in preparation for Christmas.
But at Edenhope in the far west of Victoria, it is the shoe trees, eight kilometres outside town which have upset officialdom.
The local West Wimmera Shire Council has advised the public the trees have to go.
VicRoads is the government authority responsible for managing the Wimmera Highway.
The shoe trees are alongside the highway, therefore they fall within its sphere of influence.
These are no ordinary trees, VicRoads has advised.
They are buloke trees which you might think are fairly common but have a particular importance in this part of the world.
The bulokes "are protected" by an Environmental Significance Overlay in this part of the municipality.
The planning restriction does not account for discarded shoes.
Rather, they have been identified as important "nesting or feeding habitat" for red-tailed black cockatoos which inhabit these parts along with the hated corellas.
These same restrictions apply to neighbouring landholders like farmers who might want to clear some of their own country.
The "south-eastern" red-tailed black cockatoo has been listed as endangered.
The council has advised its ratepayers the "weight of the shoes is currently weighing down branches, snapping them off".
In a 2016 report, an expert said the cockatoo occurs as a single population in south-eastern Australia bordered by Keith to Lucindale to Mount Gambier in South Australia and Portland to Casterton, Toolondo, Natimuk, Dimboola, Nhill and Kaniva in Victoria.
The cockatoo feeds almost entirely on buloke and stringybark seeds.
The cockatoo requires very large, old hollow-bearing eucalypts for nesting, preferring dead trees but also using live trees where dead trees have been cleared, this report found.
But it is not only the importance of the shoe tree to the future of our feathered friends in these parts, it has become an eyesore, the council told residents.
"The area has become untidy with many shoes on the ground."
The response from the public has been fairly muted.
Some say leave the trees alone as they are a legacy to a highly-regarded former resident.
Others say they are an icon of the district.
A working bee to clean up the area is all that is needed, suggested another.
Country communities use working bees as weapons, take note Vladimir.
As I said, the issue does give one pause from worrying about the future of the world for a time.
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