Schwerin/Güstrow (dpa/mv) – The environmental organization BUND sees deficits in the preservation and replanting of avenue trees on municipal roads. While more was planted than felled on federal and state roads in the north-east last year, the picture on municipal and district roads looks bleaker, said the avenue officer of the BUND Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Katharina Dujesiefken, on the occasion of the organization’s annual avenue day this Wednesday in Guestrow. Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania is the federal state with the most avenues after Brandenburg. The protection of avenues has constitutional status in the north-east.
“With 4019 plantings in 3498 fellings along federal and state roads, the road construction administration has shown in 2021 that it is possible to replace the felling with plantings,” said Dujesiefken. Many years of forward-looking planning had a positive effect.
On the other hand, on the district roads with around 16 percent of all avenues in the state, the obligation to replant for fellings is not taken equally seriously everywhere. There is currently a planting deficit of 6,600 trees, criticized the expert. For the municipal streets with 42 percent of all avenues in the country there is not even precise information. “It is to be feared that there is also a significant planting deficit here.”
The avenue fund of the state, with which plantings would be funded 100 percent, is well filled with more than six million euros. A payment must be made to the fund if the legally prescribed compensatory planting for felled trees does not take place, for example because there is no space available for it. However, according to Dujesiefken, money can only be drawn from the fund for planting projects that go beyond what is required by law. She called for better advice and support from the ministry for municipalities so that more avenues than before are created or remain on their streets. Nursing can also be encouraged.
According to BUND, there has been a gradual decline in avenues in Germany for decades, for example as a result of tree diseases or road expansion. According to this, there were 27,500 kilometers of avenues nationwide in 2006, but currently only around 20,000 kilometers.
