Local authorities and trees

In a previous article, we wrote about the role of trees in reducing the heat island effect. Let’s now look at the obligations, opportunities and tools local authorities have to help our cities to have more trees and more green space to help create a better climate and improve our quality of life.

Act XXXIII of 1991 requires both district municipalities and the Municipality of Budapest to prepare and evaluate their property inventories, and to provide the required data. The inventory of property includes the elements of green space, including trees. The up-to-date tree and park database and the possibility to report errors is an important professional tool to comply with the law and to achieve the above objectives. This role is fulfilled by the BP Trees app, which provides a map-based interface to help with orientation, awareness raising and conscious park use. The app was developed by FŐKERT and supported by the City of Budapest in 2020, after years of research and long professional preparation.

From the point of view of urban development, operation and management, it is of course important to assess the current situation, not only because this is required by law, but also because, as in all areas of development, it is essential to know where to start from in order to plan a strategy. And a strategy is needed in a sensitive area where we have to reconcile the existing infrastructure, the topography, the economic interests, the needs of the people living and working in the municipality with the laws of nature.

How and where green space improvements, landscaping and tree planting should take place in a neighbourhood or community is determined through strategic planning processes. The tree canopy is surveyed to determine the current vegetation cover using remote sensing, satellite imagery, existing land cover databases, or sampling methods to document the location, type and size of trees. This process will help to identify areas where low tree cover disproportionately contributes to heat island effects.

“Nature Based Solutions (NBS) are the protection, restoration and sustainable management of natural or modified ecosystems to address many of the global problems of our time, including the climate crisis.”

Nature-based solutions use trees to restore natural habitats or adapt to changing conditions.

Most of us think of the value of a tree in terms of the potential income from the sale of the felled timber. Of course, the value of a tree is much higher if the value of its ecological and social services is included in the calculation.

Methods for determining the environmental values of trees were first developed in the United States in the middle of the last century, taking into account the size, location, age and health of the tree. Later on, the calculation of values also took into account the species of the tree, the price of the seedling and its life expectancy.

Many municipalities are taking mandatory measures to protect trees and increase the quantity or quality of green spaces.

Financial incentives and penalties can also be tools that municipalities can use to increase the quantity or improve the quality of green spaces, protect them and increase stormwater retention.

Involving local communities

It is at least as important a tool as the introduction of financial incentives, but perhaps the best solution is when bottom-up initiatives meet top-down regulation and the financial incentives that go with it.

A good example of this is the community planning supported by the Municipality of Budapest, which received 81 proposals in the Green Budapest category for the 2023/2024 round, of which 25 were voted on by Budapest residents after the professional recommendations. The 3 winning proposals were all for rain gardens.

Everyone knows that we need trees in our cities. Urban tree management – from planning the planting to felling the trees – is a serious professional task. While it is important to involve the public in many areas, we often have to accept that there are situations where it is necessary to cut down trees. In this respect, it is worth listening to Sándor Bardóczi, Chief Architect of the Mayor’s Office of the Budapest Capital.

“There is, however, another type of felling, where the tree has to be felled because it becomes dangerous. On people, cars, fences, houses. It is the responsibility of the operator of the tree, under government regulation and criminal law, to spot these hazards in time and remove them before they become a problem. After all, trees are living things. They can be diseased, infected, damaged by fungi, bacteria, viruses, animals and, most importantly in the city, by humans. Trees also have a life expectancy, which is much shorter in the city than in nature. Because of us, people digging utilities, parking lots, bicycles, public transport, internet, lighting, water, sewers, car drives, fences, housing. We have had many interventions where the damage, the decay of the trees, was not caused by lack of maintenance, but by an unprofessional trimming due to a previous utility trench, a previous road reconstruction, a previous building installation, a previous overhead cable, yet we had to remove the dangerous tree, not the person who caused the damage. There have also been many cases where, after much discussion, we have managed to explain why the local people need a tree line reconstruction, which is painful for them, and they get a tree line instead, but of course it takes time for it to grow. However, it will not be concrete, an underground car park or anything else, but a new tree line. Many people also understand that action must be taken after the tree inspector has declared the danger, and in such cases the law also follows the principle of first cut, then avert, then report, just as in the case of a mass accident, emergency services first save, then apply for a social security number, because action, preventing damage and averting the danger are more important than the slowly emerging licence. If the house is on fire, no one sits down with the fireman to discuss that they think this corner should be extinguished rather than that corner, but the professionals do their job and then administer it later.”

Source: Facebook page of Sándor Bardóczi (11 October 2024)