It’s sad when a city tree dies. Usually we, the city dwellers, don’t even notice city trees when we walk past them, they are simply part of the street, just like buildings on one side and the pavement under our feet. But once they are removed, we realize how important they are for the scenery.

In one of the longest streets in Europe, Bulevar Revolucije (aka Bulevar Kralja Aleksandra) a row of some 500 platanus trees (plane trees) were planted somewhere in the 1920s, at the very beginnings of serious urban planning in Belgrade. Most of them somehow survived World War II and every major reconstruction of the boulevard in the past 80+ years. Inevitably, in that period, a number of them got sick and began to rot from the inside. Surprisingly, new city authorities decided, after one study by the Belgrade’s Forestry Faculty to cut down almost 329 (three hundred and twenty nine) plane trees and in their place plant young new trees. Many claim that it’s not possible for 329 trees to have gotten sick, and that even those that were could have been cured. The reason for this hugely unpopular move by the city authorities remains unknown, there are many theories and most of them include corruption, incompetence and general neglect towards ecology, as poor as it might be in some Belgrade’s parts.

This is what remained after the trees were cut down. Let it serve as a warning – it can happen in your city as well. Hopefully you’ll be better prepared and organized to stop it.

This is the last platanus remaining in the naked part of the boulevard now. It was saved by a fellow who put a fence around it and defended the tree around the clock:

photo: Vucko @ Beobuild

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