A 70-year-old pine tree on the campus of Maryknoll Convent School will be chopped down today after the school said yesterday that conservation measures were impractical.
The school's tearful supervisor, Helen Yu Lai Ching-ping, refused to say whether contractors who had been doing drainage work on the site had been told to protect the tree, or who should be held responsible for damage caused during the work.
She said accusations by former pupils of a lack of transparency on the issue were unfair as alumni and pupils had been informed by e-mail last year that the tree had to be felled.
A law firm wrote to the school on be half of some alumni yesterday demanding the school save the tree as it is protected by the Antiquities and Monuments Ordinance. Some alumni and former legislator Tanya Chan said they would not rule out legal action to stop the removal.
The school's principal, Josephine Lo, speaking about the controversy for the first time, said meetings had been held with the contractor and the Antiquities and Monuments Office to discuss how the drainage work should proceed.
Yu said the school had already obtained approval from the office for the tree felling, saying it was a 'painful decision'.
