Hanoi Suspends Chopping Down Trees amid Strong Local Protests

hanoi cuting down trees
Many of the protestors have expressed their disagreement with the city’s authorities via social networks while others have taken to street in Hanoi with banners calling the authorities to suspend the plan. A number of young students have labeled aged trees with “Do not kill me, please, I am healthy.”
By Vu Quoc Ngu | Mar 20, 2015

Authorities of Hanoi have decided to suspend a plan to chop down 6,700 aged trees in the capital city after facing strong protests from thousands of Vietnamese citizens, including a lot of influential persons.

Many of the protestors have expressed their disagreement with the city’s authorities via social networks while others have taken to street in Hanoi with banners calling the authorities to suspend the plan. A number of young students have labeled aged trees with “Do not kill me, please, I am healthy.”

The protest started earlier this week after the People’s Committee of the city gave the green light to the Department of Construction to massively replace aged trees with new ones in 190 city’s streets with total investment to around VND70 billion ($3.3 million) in the next three years.

The Hanoi authorities said they try to replace old trees which are with rotten bark and roots, however, the environmentalists said many cut trees are healthy.

During the past few months, thousands of aged trees in Hanoi streets were cut down, including there in Nguyen Trai street, where the Ministry of Transport is carrying out the Cat Linh-Ha Dong urban elevated railway project which is being built with Chinese technologies. Many of them are xa cu (Khaya senegalensis) planted more than 60 years ago, or even 100 years.

The forest coverage in Vietnam, the tropical country in the Southeast Asia, has been decreased sharply in decades due to increasing demand for timber.

The country has spent huge financial resources for replanting trees every year, however, the results are not effective.