Santa Cruz Groups Threaten Legal Action Over Tree Neglect
Environmental and neighborhood groups are considering legal and criminal charges against the Santa Cruz City Council and its contractor for widespread neglect, poor management, and alleged felling of healthy city trees despite a €14 million maintenance contract.
The groups Los Árboles Hablan and Iniciativas10, along with neighborhood associations El Toscal de las Tribulaciones and Urban Centro El Perenquén, are considering legal action against the Santa Cruz City Council for its widespread neglect of the city's trees.
These groups announced yesterday at a press conference that they plan to file a formal legal challenge, including urgent measures, against the poor management by the City Council and Fomento Acciona, the company contracted for Parks and Gardens. They are also considering criminal charges, as lawyer Felipe Campos explained, "the constant tree felling and complete lack of care for urban trees could be considered a crime."
Campos described the City Council's treatment of the capital's trees as "irrational." He noted that 14 million euros are being paid to a company for maintenance and care that isn't happening. This is backed up by other reports showing a lack of watering, harsh pruning, and tree felling without good reason, which they find unacceptable.
He questioned the true motive behind these actions and why a company linked to the Santos Cerdán and José Luis Ábalos scandal continues to manage the city's gardens. "The City Council is not acting responsibly, and therefore, strong action will be taken," he stated.
Virginia González and Carmen de la Rosa, spokespersons for Los Árboles Hablan, highlighted the announced felling of 13 jacaranda trees on Puerto Escondido street. Public Services councilor, Carlos Tarife, claimed in the press that these trees were diseased. Following this, the group asked the City Council for information about the street's renovation project and a technical report on the trees' health. They were told that "the decision to cut them down hasn't been made yet, but the gardening plan involves replacing diseased jacarandas with 15 new trees."
The collectives pointed out, "They never gave us the technical report explaining why these trees should be cut down, nor any details about their supposed disease or the treatment they claim to be using. This prompted us to get our own private report, which found the trees are actually healthy, with no signs of advanced disease or damage that would warrant their removal."
De la Rosa added that their study did reveal problems due to how the city manages its trees, including poor watering, random pruning, and trees being misused as supports for cables and lights, with zip ties, nails, and screws that are "strangling" their branches.
Because of this, the environmental and neighborhood groups demanded that the City Council stop all tree felling, rethink the city's project, put in a proper watering system, and take down unauthorized lights and fixings that harm the trees. This applies not just to Puerto Escondido street but also to many central areas with terraces, where owners cut back trees to install speakers or lights, breaking rules, much like the City Council itself ignores safety standards.
According to Los Árboles Hablan, cutting down the 13 jacaranda trees on Puerto Escondido street would have a significant impact on the environment, energy use, local heritage, and the landscape, potentially raising the area's temperature by 2.5ºC to 4.5ºC, and destroying the homes of birds and insects.