Men with chainsaws are unpopular in the capital, but science often supports their work
experts say: everything is under control.
What can seem like a tree massacre – like March’s controversial razing of old trees in the park near Kyiv Polytechnic Institute – can, they say, actually be a careful plan by the city administration, with the goal of helping both trees and people.
“People can’t imagine how much [debate] it takes to cut one single tree. No tree is cut in vain,” said Yury Klymenko, a dendrologist at Kyiv’s central Botanical Garden in Pechersk and an expert on park reconstruction and maintenance.
He explained that mass tree fellings in Kyiv are necessary, especially since the poverty of the late Soviet and early independence days meant that tree maintainance long fell by the wayside.
Men with chainsaws
But that was then. About five years ago, Kyiv City Administration initiated a program to reconstruct Kyiv’s parks, working with Botanical Garden experts and Kyivzelenbud, the 3,000-employee organization in charge of planting and keeping up the city’s trees. Part of the program involves cutting down trees where necessary.
But the sight of men with chainsaws drives citizens crazy, and since the program started, phones at Kyivzelenbud – which has been taking care of the city’s trees since 1870, when it was created by order of the Tsar’s Duma – have been ringing off the hook.
“It’s the hottest topic these days: why chop down trees, why cut off branches?” said Valentyn Didenko, the head of Kyivzelenbud’s planning department.
“You go to the hairdresser’s, you cut nails. Trees also need to be pruned, for safety and aesthetic purposes and rejuvenation,” he said.
“On Kyiv’s territory, there live nine to 10 million trees and almost three million people. About 30,000 people die in Kyiv annually, according to the Health Ministry data. And every year, we cut down about the same number of sick or dangerous trees,” Didenko continued. “That shows that we take care of the trees three times more efficiently than the doctors care about people.”
A tree’s lifespan is roughly comparable to a person’s, with many kinds of Ukrainian trees living an average of 60 to 70 years.
Shelled trees
The majority of today’s mature trees in Kyiv were planted right after World War II, to replace ones destroyed by shelling and fires. Fast-growing, undemanding varieties were used: poplars, lindens and maples. That means that at the beginning of the new millennium, huge numbers of Kyiv’s trees are at retirement age, so to speak, and must be chopped down.
Obtaining permission to cut down a tree starts with an appeal to one of Kyiv’s 10 Regional Departments on Green Plantation Maintenance. The department examines the tree, and if cutting is advisable, drafts a document requesting it. That document is delivered to the State Ecology and Natural Resources Department, and if ecologists there agree with its conclusion, it’s passed along to Kyivzelenbud, which has the final word on whether the trees can be cut or not. Where there’s ambiguity as to what a tree’s fate should be, Botanical Garden consultants are invited to consult.
A fee covering each cut-down tree’s replacement cost is paid to the regional department by the agency that requests the cutting. That fee averages Hr 250, and depends on the tree variety. A blue pine, for instance, may cost up to Hr 1,500.
Clear the underbrush
Kyivzelenbud attracts criticism not only for chopping down old trees, but also for thinning out parkland and hillsides by removing underbrush and saplings. Out of 20 people casually questioned by the Post, 13 said they didn’t approve of the changes. “I liked it more when the parks were wilder; it was more romantic,” said Alya Pashuk, a student.
Unsurprisingly, Kyivzelenbud’s Didenko has a different opinion.
“City planning has to walk in pace with the times: a modern park must have a cafe, a toilet,” he said. “If you want to walk in the thicket, go to Pushcha Vodytsya.”
“Each tree needs a certain space. If too many trees live next to each other, they grow tall, thin and weak, like matchsticks. A heavy storm can easily take them down. Diseases may break out,” added Klymenko, the scientist at the Botanical Garden in Pechersk.
He said that if Kyiv’s parks have been abandoned for the last 15 to 20 years, Kyiv’s hillsides haven’t been cleared since the end of World War II, when gas service came to Kyiv and people stopped chopping trees for firewood. This caused soil erosion, as grass can’t grow in permanent shadow, and every heavy rain caused mudslides. Now foresters plant the cleared hills with grass to hold the soil in place.
Kyivans shouldn’t worry, the specialists say.
“God has given us so much forest that we don’t need more. We just need to preserve what we already have,” said Didenko.
