(Trees and bushes that were just cut down outside of my apartment)
Last week, my apartment building sent out an email stating that they would “be removing the trees and bushes from in between the buildings in an attempt to upgrade the community”. After reading this, everyone assumed that it was going to be three to six trees, maybe, because none of the trees or bushes were dead or even close to dying. They started on April 3 2019 and they are still cutting down trees today, April 14 2019. From what I have seen, they have cut down over 50 trees/bushes and that’s probably not even half of it. I felt sick to my stomach the moment I walked out of my door and saw trees lying all over the place. They cut down the only life this apartment building had and they did it for absolutely no reason at all. I hate whenever anyone cuts down trees but especially right now, it’s extremely important that we preserve all natural life on this planet.
(While they did mention removal, “trimming” was an understatement)
(This is a few of the trees/bushes that were cut down in the front of the building)
For my plan, I want to handle it from a more general level. I’m planning to go around to each apartment in every building with my roommates and we’re going to ask them sign a petition saying that our apartment building must replant every single tree that they just cut down. After we get signatures, I’m going to speak to my building manager about this to ask them to replant the trees and if not, I will be contacting the higher ups. If none of this works, I will go to social media about this as well. I think this will be effective because (hopefully) every resident will say that is wrong and they won’t have any other choice but to replant what they have taken away.
Hi Elizabeth,
This is absurd that they are cutting down all these trees! On campus there has been a reduced mowing campaign. I went to the symposium last semester and was surprised to find out that the reason facilities mows the grass so often is because controlled nature is what the board defines as “beautiful.” So the department working to reduce mowing is trying to redefine “beauty.” Now that I am in this class, I find it even more interesting that the result of our domination and control over nature in this case is what the board thinks of as being ideal. Maybe you could make a similar argument to your landlord or residential authority that removing trees is counterproductive to their goal to “upgrade the community.” That in order to really upgrade, they need more trees rather than less. Good luck!
Erica
Hi Erica,
I had no idea that was the reason why they mow the lawns every week! My apartment complex does that every week as well! I’m glad that the department is working to reduce the mowing, that’s a really great step. That’s a really great idea, I will definitely be doing that! It’s so sad because many birds were living in the trees and now the birds just sit in the dirt where the trees where. I honestly almost burst out into tears when I saw that.
Thank you!