The conservative city council of Seville wants to completely cut down the centennial large-leaved fig tree (Ficus centenario de San Jacinto), planted in 1913 and declared an Asset of Cultural Interest (BIC). The tree stood in front of the San Jacinto church, in the popular district of Triana.
Ecologists demand that the huge trunk that still stands today remains as a symbol of failure and of the gradual disappearance of trees in the Andalucian capital.
Municipal arborists have shown that the tree is dead. The Dominican religious order’s radical pruning, approved in 2022, was deadly. The priest of the parish of San Jacinto, Javier Rodríguez, was already the driving force behind the felling two years ago when the tree was on his property. The tree would be a danger. Now, two years later, experts have confirmed the tree’s death.
City council vs environmentalists
The city council believes that the best solution is to remove the huge trunk and replace it with another large tree. Meanwhile, environmentalists from Ecologistas en Acción oppose this and ask for the tree to be left standing. Centuries-old trees can revive over time. Environmentalists want the ficus to remain as a symbol of the struggle for shade in a city where the number of trees has declined in recent years despite rising temperatures. “We are in the deep fryer of Europe and are far behind cities like Paris or Berlin, which are much cooler and better adapted to climate change”.
They came en masse to the city council meeting on Friday to put pressure on the city council to prevent the felling of the trunk of the centennial ficus from being approved. The Con Podemos-IU party has proposed to “strengthen the stump of the ficus as an emblem of the Triana district”. The environmentalists support this idea. The PSOE, whose leader Antonio Muñoz authorised the felling as mayor in 2022, supports the removal of the specimen proposed by the city council.
Who is to blame?
The current City Council blames the municipal PSOE for the death of the centennial ficus, because for a year – from August 2022 to the summer of 2023 – they did not provide the ficus with palliative care – regular watering and care to prevent mold. Hours before the pruning was due to be completed two years ago, a judge informed the town hall that he was considering suspending the work, but the workers sped up the pruning with the chainsaws. The local police protected them from the environmentalists, who protested in the streets. Moreover, 70% of the tree structure was destroyed that night. The judge’s order came too late.
After the extreme pruning, all its leaf mass disappeared, the tree suffered a summer heat stroke and high temperatures, and fungi appeared in the roots that break down and rot the wood, according to the city council’s environmental engineers.
Agricultural technician Pedro Torrent now recommends looking ahead and replacing the tree with another large one. A tree that offers shade again on a busy corner of the Triana district. It remains to be seen whether the environmentalists’ fight to preserve the trunk of the tree has been settled or if there is still room for manoeuvre.
Also read: A journey through Seville´s barios