In Paraná, residents hug more than 100 trees to prevent them from being cut down

Neighbors of Paraná, in the Argentine province of Entre Ríos, stand guard to prevent more than 100 old trees from being felled located along 550 meters of Boulevard Racedo.

The Municipality wants to widen the street to speed up traffic and promises that the trees will be transplanted, but residents are suspicious and assure that the damage would be irreversible.

“It is unnecessary and they justify themselves saying that it is a work that has been pending since 1956 and that it would decongest traffic”, Daniela Verzeñassi, a member of the Paraná Ecologist Forum, told Carbon News. But the boulevard is “a space for a walk,” Daniela added.

According to the neighbors, the boulevard remodeling project presented by the municipality does not refer to the felling of trees. Neither was an environmental impact assessment presented, and the work was categorized as having “very low environmental impact”, which also means that there is no place for a public hearing in which citizens can participate.

Last week, a group of self-convened neighbors, frontrunners and members of The group Foro Ecologista de Paraná met and hugged the trees when they saw that they began to cut them down.

For this action, they denounced, they were beaten by a UOCRA gang for “not letting them work.” The police arrived and detained two neighbors, but they were released shortly after. That day, they cut down three trees.

On the boulevard there are 80 ash trees and specimens of: ibirá pita, yellow lapacho, acer negundo, palm trees, yellow sneaks, espinillo, aguaribay, black sauce, ficus, thuja, thevetia, white tipa, espumilla or crepe, yellow guarán, garden laurel , shadow plantain, palo borracho, jacaranda, privet and ornamental euphorbia.

Suddenly, without popular consultation

In January, the residents of Paraná learned that the Municipality wanted to widen and repave Boulevard Racedo and that, for that, it would have to talar more than 100 trees that are found throughout almost six blocks.

Quickly, they contacted Ecologist Forum of Paraná that presented an environmental protection to prevent the work, included in the “Plan Argentina Hace II”. In this way, they managed to delay it.

“Our surprise was that in the project the municipality at no time says that they are going to cut down the trees, only that they are going to plant trees. Probably Nación does not know about this, but we would like to believe that they had not approved it, since it does not have a social license,” said the activist.

Later, the trial judge called a conciliation hearing between the Forum and the municipality. At this point, the city council proposed hiring a company from Buenos Aires to transplant the trees, which are more than 12 meters high.

“We opposed that as it was unfeasible, it cost a fortune and the trees were going to die”, explained Verzeñassi.

The ruling prohibited indiscriminate logging, proposed that the Forum be the observer of the work– in which only trees in poor condition could be removed, which number four or five, depending on the group- and the rest should be moved, as the municipality had proposed.

But the local government objected to the Forum being an observer and transporting the trees, and appealed the ruling.

Yes, the case reached the Superior Court of Justice of Entre Ríos, which ruled in favor of the municipality. Therefore, the Forum is no longer involved, nor do the governance have the obligation to transplant the trees.

“They boast of having a social license because three presidents of neighborhood commissions in the area gave their support. But they don’t have that authority. One of them has expired for two years and has lived in the neighborhood for three years,” claimed the activist.

Thanks to the Ombudsman’s Office, on Sunday March 28 there was a non-binding mediation with the Ombudsman’s Office, the municipality, the self-convened neighbors and the Forum.

“It can be valued as positive because it was the first time that we managed to be with Mayor Adán Bahl and his officials in the same space,” highlighted by the president of the Paraná Ecological Forum, Sergio Daniel Verzeñassi, Daniela’s father.

What’s more, they managed to get the municipality to agree not to touch a single tree while the mediation continues.

“It is a lie that they are going to transplant the trees, they have no possibility since the roots are all mixed with the underground sewer pipes, drinking water and household connections. If they do, they create another scandal, which is to break the sewers at the hands of all the fronts,” added Verzeñassi Sr.

For his part, Bahl said: “It is a work of urban connection, very relevant for the city, approved by the relevant institutions, which takes spaces and sidewalks that are public” and is “very important for the neighbors, since it improves sanitary and rain drains, drinking water connections, lighting and road safety”.

The last legal step for the neighbors is to go to the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation. But they doubt, because they already know the long times that they handle there: For more than two years they have been waiting for the CSJN to fail in a case about schools fumigated with pesticides.

“Every tree that falls, a possibility of neighborhood integration falls,” declared the president of the Forum, and added: “We defend the tree for the tree itself, for life itself, but also because that neighborhood still retains the condition of a boulevard. One has another type of self-censoring speed to travel. Over there a grandfather crosses in front of his grandson’s house to make him soup because the parents work.”

“Green cities”: back to nature

“Trees must be defended, but this goes further, it is a much broader, more systemic issue. In the times that we are living with climate change, health crisis, we cannot afford to generate works that go against what the world is proposing that it needs to be done in cities: tree them, widen the sidewalks and others”, explained Daniela.

Daniela’s father, at the same time, highlighted the importance of trees as “oxygen factories”, and added: “In Paraná there is an ordinance that recognizes the tree as a logistical element of public health, due to the value of the air we breathe. The pandemic virus just comes through the airways. Why add a problem to the one we already have?”

“Surely several captivated with the asphalt defend the mayor’s project saying that we are deniers of progress. I ask what progress? If the cities that often also type to travel and come back dazzled are European cities that are working hard to incorporate trees and clean the waters,” concluded the president of the Forum.