I have heard speculation online that the tree was not loved by local farmers who were sick of the tourists tramping over their land. No idea how true that is, but in general farmers tend to have a very unromantic relationship with the natural world, so it doesn’t sound impossible to me that they found a champion in the teenager, or even did it themselves and let someone take the fall who is unlikely to go to jail.
Either way, whoever did this probably didn’t expect the international outcry, and will have thought they could get away with what they probably thought was a minor infraction.
