Bette Midler - Tree Killer

(Kauai, Hawaii) The Divine Miss M is being fined.

Entertainer and Oahu native Bette Midler will pay a $6,500 fine for improperly cutting down more than 200 trees on one of her Kauai properties, an attorney representing her said yesterday.

"It was cleared without permits, and without the realization that permits were necessary," Kauai attorney Max W.J. Graham said of Midler's 58,500-square-foot lot in the Haena District of Kauai's North Shore.

State conservation workers noticed Oct. 17 that Midler's vacant lot makai [toward the ocean] of the Kuhio Highway from Limahuli Valley was being cleared and that a graded road had been built to it, says a report to the state Board of Land and Natural Resources.

An after-the-fact survey by botanists hired by Midler determined that 120 Java plum trees, 100 octopus trees and 10 to 20 Madagascar olive trees -- all non-native species -- and an undetermined number of native hau trees were removed, the report said.

Because the land is zoned for conservation uses, any activity on it must be approved by the Board of Land and Natural Resources.

I'll suggest that this is a case where receiving permission would have been much harder than simply preparing to make amends.