Several centuries-old trees are set to be chopped down by city officials in downtown London’s Harris Park, but one local university student is planning a protest in hopes of saving them.
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Genevieve Langille plans a March 24 rally against city hall’s plans to cull an estimated 29 trees, all part of municipal infrastructure projects, and she’s inviting Londoners to join her.
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“I think it’s really quite a tragedy because these are very, very old trees that are very beautiful,” the 21-year-old said. “And a lot of Londoners are very used to walking to this park and seeing all these trees, but all of them along the shoreline are gone.”
City hall issued a statement regarding the removal of trees over the next few weeks. Trees marked with white paint are due to be cut down, officials note, either due to looming infrastructure work, poor health or the fact they may be an invasive species.
It’s not an easy decision, city hall officials said in the statement. “Removing a tree is never the city’s first choice and tree impacts are reduced as much as possible when new infrastructure is being added or replaced.”
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Langille said she hopes city hall will reconsider the plan to cut down all the marked Harris Park trees.
“It makes sense that the trees would be impacted by the construction, but I don’t think it’s necessary to cut all of them down because a lot of them are in really good condition,” Langille said. “I’m hoping that the city will reconsider that.”
City hall plans to plant far more trees than will be removed, likely 80, and the replacements will be such trees as eastern cottonwood, black maple, and American sycamore, which once fully grown will provide more canopy cover than is in Harris Park now, they say.
Langille isn’t impressed by the planned replacements, which she describes as “new trees that are much smaller and aren’t going to have the same growth as the ones that are hundreds of years old.”
She plans to put posters on the doomed trees to raise awareness and she prepares for a March 24 rally at 2 pm in Harris Park at the Kensington Bridge.
“As one citizen, there’s not much I can do unless other people come out to the protest,” Langille said.
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