Defend Your Community Forests

All Plants Bulletin is not stating that you should go out and defend your natural resources yourself, when they need it, forming militias and expressing general civic unrest if necessary, we only share this report about a mexican town where they did so, enhancing and strengthening the ties of the social structure of the settlement, practicing direct decisionmaking, growing trees in greenhouses, patrolling the woods, guarding it from illegal cutting.

Groves of The Florence Suburbs

After a sudden springtime sick-leave, All Plants Bulletin is alive and kicking again.  Let's roll back the wheel of time a few degrees. As we mentioned, we spent some days in Florence, at the very end of March. Our little teaser started off somewhere here:

On one of the last days, we decided to cross the Arno out in the suburbs, where our lodging has been, to reach the historical sites of the southwestern side of the old town from an unusual direction.

We quickly realised, that it's not all concrete and cobblestone, with the occasional parks thrown in. While Budapest was still slumbering under thick blankets of snow, Florence was awash with light rain, blown by quiet winds, with floating grey clouds hovering above with occasional sunlight checking in. The air was smelling of rain and lush pastures over here, which is probably similarly unconventional as March snowstorms in Central Europe. 

Handsome line of houses resembling a historical character, although only decades old.

But it made it all the more obvious, that what difference this plant life could mean in the hellish weeks of the mediterranean deep summertime weeks of July, or August. In the last few years, denziens of Budapest were forced to get accustomed to extreme heatwaves, when layers of African air drifts over the scorched city, and slowly settles in between the multistory buildings, spans wall to wall over avenues. Small parks, groups of trees like this could mean a difference between torment and inconvenience. 

Artificial bathouse, a comfortable resting spot for the summertime predators of mosquitos.

The trees did not disappear until the borders of the innercity. This row can be a much-welcome hideout from the heat, only a few tramstops away from the busiest streets.

The urban tribal marks, called graffiti, are a necessity in every large settlement. The playground is otherwise in perfect condition, and the barks wear no scars, showing peaceful coexistence of human and plant life here.

Treeslaughter at Csobánka

Hundreds of trees have been chopped down, in and around the cemetery of Csobánka ("Chobanka"), surrounded by controversy.

Casualties include seedlings, as well as trees with  trunks greater than 40 cm diameter. The area has not been cleaned properly, and the stipes have not been removed from the ground, which suggests that the perpetrators were in a hurry and only took the logs without doing the hard job.

The plant life was probably exectued by the local militia commander, but his motifs, and the legal background of this operation are blurry at best. Here is a quick rundown of the controversy:

1. The mayor of the village says, the trees have been cut out to make room for a drainage ditch.

2. The commander made the same claims, and reported that the cuttings was done by "the poor of Csobánka", who got firewood this way.

 3. The manager responsible for the drainage development, answering the questions of national weekly newspaper  Magyar Narancs, stated that four trees are facing death for the sake of the ditch, but on the other side of the road, and he claimed absolutely no involvement with the cuttings around the cemetery.

4. Under increasing pressure from local enviromentalists, the notary of Csobánka admitted that no one asked for his clearance for the treecutting. This makes the operation illegal, as the clearance is necessary by law to start the cutting.

5. Later the commander stated at the village council meeting, that only seedlings have been chopped down, which seedlings have grown "wild" and representing "no value". He also said that this was necessary to clean up the cemetery, to make room for a parking lot, and establishing running water connection. So the trees had to go.

6. None of the above-mentioned developments were known to the city council members, no plans have been made, no cost estimated. Running water connection is out of the question anyway, since it would require special pressure-enhancing machinery the village has no money for. The statement that only seedlings have been cut is an obvious lie, anyone can see the stipes the perpetrators did not bother to remove yet.

So, no clearance from the notary, no council planning, and the road development office does not know anything about this plantlife-butchery. It's also sad to hear that someone thinks that trees growing "wild" can be cut down without any sort of paperwork or warrant - this is obviously not the case in Hungary, the country has laws controlling usage of natural resources.

After following the story on local blogs, All Plants Bulletin can only come down to the probable conclusion, without any tangible proof of course, that someone in the circles of the mayor gave direct orders to the militia commander to cut the trees and use the logs for their own gains, either sell it illegally or distribute it as firewood to their partners, ensuring their support. 

The police has not been alarmed, there is no investigation, counterterrorism units are not bustling in the peaceful village near the Budapets suburbs. So the perpetrators seem likely to get away with their crimes, and can repeat doing it anytime in the future.

Blue Green Dream

According to the eleventh principle of permaculture edges and borders are the most important parts of any ecosystem, since at the edge, you can find three distinct living spaces: the one inside the edge, the one over the edge, and the mixture of both in the vicinity of the edge, often hosting a plethora of lifeforms evolved specially for the unique conditions of the overlapping areas. 

This is why riverside forests, estuaries, or borders of meadows and woods are such important living spaces.

Natural waters flowing through cities are often times no more than giant waste sewages nowadays, with citydwellers completely torn apart from the river which a few centuries, or even decades ago was the main source of life, mean of travel, key of commerce for them.

Budapest is the prime example of what industrialized and centralized city "development" is doing to a once majestic river, and in the current century we see the activization of civil groups to mitigate the damage done and bring the people closer to their rivers (one of the best known NGO's are Valyo, affiliated to  the Mindspace project)

Blue Green Dream is an international project for exactly that purpose. Many woes of modern cities (like summertime overheating, extreme energy consumption for temperature control, noise) could be eliminated or mitigated by "blue-green" projects, smart solutions using plant coverage, rainwater capturing, green roofs and other ideas involving plant life and natural waters. If interested, you can check out the article about Blue Green Dream, here.