The Bund Naturschutz in Bayern (BN) welcomes the guide “City trees in Bavaria in times of climate change” presented by Environment Minister Thorsten Faithr (Freie Wahler), but the document does not go far enough. For a meaningful implementation of the guideline, mandatory tree protection regulations are needed in the municipalities, said BN chairman Richard Mergner on Thursday, according to the announcement: “Otherwise the guideline should be understood more as an appeal.”
Currently, just under 100 of the more than 2,000 towns and communities have a tree protection ordinance. This is not enough – especially if you look at the investigations on which Glauber’s guidelines are based, said Mergner. The ecosystem services of trees increase significantly with age, so older trees in particular need to be better protected. The cooling capacity of a 90-year-old lime tree, for example, is ten times that of a 20-year-old one, explained the BN experts.
In July, the BN asked the 15 largest cities in Bavaria about the number of trees felled and replanted over the past ten years. The environmentalists described the results as alarming: there is no uniform recording of the numbers. The only certainty is that more trees were felled than were replanted. According to BN projections, 300,000 urban trees have been felled in the past ten years, but only 250,000 have been replanted.
In addition to mandatory tree protection regulations, the BN also calls for a tree register obligation. Only in less than ten percent of the municipalities is there such a directory in which the age and type of trees are stored. Glauber’s guide also recommends such a register. According to BN information, it says literally: “Because you can only protect what you know.”