Axe The STIB's Power, Not The Trees

By Suki Jenkins

It started 25-or-so years ago on Boulevard General Jacques, which was a grand tree-lined street once resembling the nearby avenues Louise and Winston Churchill. It's now a desolate main drag where exposed shoddy buildings have given way to car-exhaust fumes.

They cut the trees for the tramlines - the STIB.

To this saga of destruction was added a new chapter when a June 2003 decision by the government allowed the Brussels transport authority to fell all the trees on Avenue Winston Churchill, a boulevard famed for its beauty.

The reasons given originally seemed logical. Parasite infestation, instability and - very common to our culture - a need to get rid of what is just too old.

However these processes (using French scientists AFTER the decision was made) were, it seems, questionable.

Independent experts have since said that the majority of the trees are neither unstable, nor too old, nor plagued with disease and parasites of any incurable nature, and that they pose no public danger.

In June 2006 the residents of the avenue were 'consulted', a meaningless term as in Belgium, evidently, public opinion holds no sway. That's because in the face of the reactions of the local community in this leafy part of Uccle, 350 chestnut trees are to be chopped down regardless.

Despite the best efforts of more than 2,000 petitioners and 250 protesters - and a strong-willed charity organisation formed last year and named 'Protect the Chestnut Trees' - the commune continues to suffer this destruction. And all with the mayor's approval.

The president of the protesting organisation, Edgard N. D'Hose - who is a foreign legal consultant, a one-time parliament member and Uccle resident - pulls no punches: "The biggest parasite of the trees is the STIB itself," he says.

It will cost a mighty 3 million euros just to cull these gifts to the Avenue that were planted under the auspices of King Leopold II more than 100 years ago and the others planted 50 years later. Other costs, including moving streetlights, cleaning up etcetera, are likely to match if not exceed that figure. The chestnuts have a life span, incidentally, of 250 years.

Astonishingly, the STIB says these monuments to Belgium's history are 'too old'.

Monsieur D'Hose is sadly watching and listening as other gifts from the old King are being axed outside his office window on Avenue Louise. Leopold bequeathed this most famous boulevard to the Belgian state in 1903, stipulating that Louise - named after his queen - should be forever kept 'a garden'. Already, the STIB have cut down trees for a tram-parking spot and are widening the tracks.

There are future plans to attack others of the city's grand boulevards and clear them of the chestnuts. These splendid streets include Avenue Albert (the continuation of Winston Churchill), the remainder of Louise and the astonishingly beautiful Avenue Tervuren among others.

In essence, there exists a pilot model for the rest of the grand boulevards in Brussels.

Many of us have, for years, been getting out of our cars and using public transport as a way to help the environment.

Little did we know that we were unwittingly aiding and abetting the killing of hundreds of trees and, with them, the beauty of our city.

As D'Hose says, the situation is 'to cry for'.

The Avenue Winston Churchill petition can be viewed in full at http://www.protectiondesmarronniers.org/

However, the all-importantsent signature section is reproduced below. You can print it out, sign it, and get it to "Protection des Marronniers" asbl by:
   o mail to "Protection des Marronniers" asbl, 522 Avenue Louise, Box 3, 1050 Brussels
   o fax on 02/648.18.80
   o email (scan + signatures!) to protectmarronniers@yahoo.fr

Protection of Marronniers   

Photographs by Digby Washer and Irina Khramtsova