People walk thru the tree-filled Parkway in the Teusaquillo neighborhood. |
Councilman Saenz points to a photograph of deforested land in the Bosque Izquierdo neighborhood. |
City Councilman Roberto Saenz, who calls himself 'the environmentalist councillor' has held a series of public hearings about urban deforestation, focusing particularly on several cases of construction on or near Bogotá's iconic Eastern Hills, its Cerros Orientales. These include apartment towers in north Bogotá and in the historic Bosque Izquierdo neighborhood, and two towers which the Universidad Externado is building above the La Candelaria neighborhood.
"I'm not impartial on this," Saenz said. "I'm for the trees."
Colombia's Consejo de Estado recently ruled that the hills' Forestry Reserve should be sacrosanct.
A map shows the area where the Externado University is building towers above La Candelaria. |
While there are questions about the these projects' documents and licenses, what is clear is that many contradict the city's declared philosophy of protecting public space and promoting sustainable transit not based on the private car.
"When all the evidence shows that we are going against nature, how can they tell us that all the (projects') documents are in order?" said Fernando Cortés, a leader in the Bosque Izquierdo neighborhood.
A woman walks past a sawed-off sidewalk tree in Teusaquillo. |
The Externado's project includes the removal of thousands of trees, altho some are supposedly being replanted elsewhere and the university is supposed to plant trees in other places. But that will still mean the loss of forest and green space for the people, many of them poor, who live in nearby neighborhoods. And, the university's project, which includes almost 500 parking spaces, will produce impacts including pollution and traffic jams along La Circuvular Avenue and in the historic center, La Candelaria.
Juan Melgare, a resident of the tree-filled Teusaquillo neighborhood and urban tree advocate, attended a recent meeting to
Nothing green here: A treeless street in the Puente Aranda neighborhood. |
"They want to cut down trees in one of the most polluted parts of Bogotá," Melgare said.
Melgare points out that there are huge economic incentives for deforestation. The companies hired to do the work can earn from hundreds of thousands to millions of pesos for for cutting down a tree. And the wood is sold to barbecue restaurants.
Melgare even defends non-native trees, such as pines, urapanes and eucalyptus. He recalled one promoter of native trees who wanted a huge eucalyptus tree cut down.
"I asked him his age," Melgare recalled. "He was 50. I told him 'That tree is 75 years old. It's got more citizenship than you do."
Juan Melgare stands under a tree in Teusaquillo. |
A metal tree on a sidewalk in Puente Aranda. |
A bus belching smoke passes a lonely and mutilated tree on a street in Puente Aranda. |
Another Bite Out of Bogotá's Hills
By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours
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