Yes, this is a call to the Ministry of the Environment to intervene with the force of the law to try to reduce the ecocide against urban trees that has become a city habit.
With this call I am dreaming that the Ministry will reduce the illegal felling of trees in the University Zone, of which the residents of the area have horrifying memories of the felling of trees that could have been the pride of any city in the world and of which, I repeat, only the memory of their unpunished felling remains.
And let’s not forget that impunity for crime in general and for administrative negligence is a characteristic of the Dominican State today!
Let me get into the matter: These days some inhabitant of the Neris Mercedes Residential multifamily located at Benigno Filomena Rojas Street No. 307, between the New School and the RAS Transportation Company, in the university area, almost in the center of the block from the same street flanked by Padre Pina and Amín Abel Hasbún, presumably cut part of the central bark of two adult trees that are still alive on that street, but not for much longer.
“The bark protects the delicate cambium layer (living cells) of the tree from bumps and cuts, the bark protects the tree from extreme temperatures and intense sun. A whole scab over a wound. The bark protects the tree against pathogenic organisms.”
What the malefactors did to two adult trees is similar to skinning themselves, that is, ripping off their skin.
Legal basis to proceed against the felling of trees.
Article 138 of the “Environmental Law” (as Law 64-00 is known) empowers the authorities to submit to the courts of the Republic any criminal who fells trees in the city without the consent of the Ministry, or who inflict damage that causes death.
“The destruction, degradation, impairment and reduction of natural ecosystems and species of wild flora and fauna is prohibited.”
But there is another complaint to make; that if the announced crime is carried out, not only would it be much worse than the cutting of the two other trees indicated, but legally and aesthetically it would be a worse damage for the urban wild flora to cut down a gigantic samán tree located exactly on the corner of the Padre Pina and Dr. Piñeiro streets.
According to the public rumor of the residents of the area, the City Council of the DN has the unhealthy purpose of cutting that saman: a) because it has completely raised the sidewalk that surrounds it, preventing pedestrians from passing on that little bit of the sidewalk.
b) because for that reason some neighbors would have complained to the building authority.
I make fervent hopes that the Ministry of the Environment, its advisers, its collaborators, and also all those environmentalists with access to the media take to the streets to prevent it from perpetrating a new environmental crime of a gigantic saman whose death will put us everyone to cry.
By Mario Bonetti
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