Versalles has become one of the most attractive neighborhoods in the city, located across from the North Hotel Zone, with a growing gastronomic offering and the construction of condominium buildings, contrasting with the decline in basic services and attacks on the ecological environment.
As happened last week, when municipal personnel went too far with the pruning of nine enormous, decades-old amapa trees that had already become part of the landscape at the busy intersection of Vienna and France streets. They cut practically all of their branches and foliage, leaving only the trunks, creating a serious risk that the trees will dry out, as has already happened in other cases in the same area.
The incident caused astonishment, anger, and rejection among residents and passersby, who questioned the municipality’s Subdirectorate of Environmental Sustainability, as well as the Office of Territory and Sustainable City Management, for failing to protect the natural environment.
CPS Noticias-Tribuna de la Bahía received numerous complaints from citizens expressing their dismay over the damage to the urban trees.
“It is a shame that they carried out such aggressive pruning; just a few days ago, flocks of parakeets were flying through the foliage of those trees,” shared one of the residents of Vienna Street.
They reported that municipal personnel arrived with a crane, dump trucks, and a machine that collected some of the branches and foliage they had cut down.
“I think pruning was necessary because days earlier, with the wind, a branch fell onto the sidewalk, but what they did was too much. No one is opposed to rational pruning, carried out with knowledge, rather than simply arriving with a chainsaw and indiscriminately cutting down half the trees,” said another resident.
They recalled that on previous occasions, some irresponsible residents, with the municipality’s support, have damaged the trees. The last time was approximately three years ago, when criticism and complaints were also raised over poor pruning techniques; one amapa tree even dried out.
Trees with history
These trees were planted by Daniel Uribe, his wife Angelina González, and their children in 1970, when they moved to the then-emerging Versalles neighborhood, on the outskirts of old Puerto Vallarta, near Las Glorias Beach.
Every day, they watered the trees and applied Fito-Klor, a dry agricultural insecticide used to control a wide variety of pests and prevent leafcutter ants, which numbered in the thousands on these properties at the time, from eating them.
The trees grew over the decades, and several can still be seen along France and Vienna streets, creating a beautiful natural spectacle every spring when they bloom, as well as providing shelter for birds. The amapa tree is an emblematic species of Mexico and Latin America, famous for covering its leafless branches with large quantities of pink or yellow flowers during the dry season.
Source: tribunadelabahia
