The 2024 Olympic Games are approaching. This means for the Mayor of Paris profound transformations of the city. Sometimes controversial work. This is the case of the project for the future Eiffel Tower district. Léa Ramsamy went to a rally against this project and the protection of trees in Paris.
From the top of a two-century-old plane tree, Thomas Brail gives a talk about forests. But if the activist has gained height, it is also to denounce the renovation of the Champs de Mars: a project that threatens its century-old trees.
“There is a luggage kiosk that must be built two meters from its roots. We know that underneath, there are roots. To build it, you will have to pass under it for tens or even hundreds of meters. Proceeding on a bicentenary tree in this way will have big consequences, knowing that it already existed when Gustave Eiffel built his tower”, exclaims Ludovic Coste, member of the National Tree Monitoring Group created by Thomas Brail, with whom he shares the fight.
Of which act. Faced with the controversy, the town hall is reviewing its copy.
” No decision has yet been made on this issue of luggage storage. We can quite imagine that there is a relocation to other sites. The project will be overhauled. We will see if it is feasible or not, but in the strict preservation of the existing tree heritage, and also with the planting of new trees and the revegetation of new spaces. “, explains Christophe Najdovski, assistant to the revegetation of public spaces.
The town hall of Paris wishes to plant 227 new trees on the site of the Eiffel Tower.
“What you need to see is not just how many trees you plant, it’s also why you plant them, where you plant them, and do you preserve the trees in square. When, for example, you plant very dense trees, not all the trees can survive, because they compete with each other, and eventually a large part of the trees dies. We say how many we plant at the moment T, but we don’t say how many are left ten years later. Here, we have trees that are already there, that are already tall, that are already fulfilling their role in cooling the atmosphere. And these trees are not protected”, explains Bruno Doucet of the association Canopy living forests, organizer of the conference, which calls into question the project.
“ We are on trees that will be planted in the public space, so there are rules. When we plant in public spaces, it is to ensure that the trees in question live for several decades, or even longer. We are of course on the idea of a plant densification, and also of a work, which aims to adapt the city. On the question of climate change, we know that it is through revegetation that we will also respond to this challenge of today and tomorrow. », assures Christophe Najdovski, who affirms that all the trees planted will be viable.
Thomas Brail will not stay perched on his tree. The Champ-de-Mars is not the only case he defends. This Monday, June 20, he meets the Minister of Ecology, Amélie de Montchalin to discuss the protection of forests.