Trees… yearning to breathe free.

4 June 2023

Gotta love my city.

From “Ante inacción de la Benito Juárez, vecinos liberan raíces de árboles“, Elba Monica Bravo for Jornada.

With picks, shovels, crowbars, hammers and mallets, residents of the Benito Juárez borough mayor’s office “freed the roots” in the San José Insurgentes neighborhood, to allow them to receive water, and to create more green space.

Palms, rubber trees, poplars, pines and cypresses growing on Mercaderes, Saturnino Herrán, Lorenzo Rodríguez and Diego Becerra streets were rescued from “drowning in cement” and some additinal trees.. two ashes and a year and a half old were planted by Narvarte resident Andrés Parra, who volunteed to assist in the operation.

Sebastián López, another Narvate resident, lamented that Borough mayor Santiago Taboada “is not interested in the environment and only makes speeches about his pet security program.” Lopez criticized the local administration for the 2,000 trees lost to poor pruning,

“They are drowned in cement, torturted to death as they age or dying without being replaced by an adminstration with a reforestation plan”. At the corner of Yácatas and Eje 5 Sur, they allowed a butcher shop to remove a jacaranda tree to expand access to the parking lot, and between Real de Mayorazgo and Mayorazgo de la Higuera there are dozens of planters without trees or plants, and even left some with just stumps in them.

Carmen Contreras, from the neighborhood Participation Council, criticized the mayor’s office for responding to the requirements to prune or rescue trees that they claim the species does not exist and terminated the application for action, despite having presented photographs and electronic locations.

Councilor Enrique Tamayo said that the actions were carried out as part of World Environment Day, dedicated to raising awareness among neighbors to protect trees. “The only thing left is for the mayor’s office to attend to our request to collect the sacks of concrete and gravel that were left to one side of those liberated trees”