Xie Jinhe, chairman of Caixin Media Group, said that recently there have been many photos of trees being cut down in Taipei on Facebook, Threads and other social platforms. Among them, the old eggplant tree on Jinshan South Road was mistakenly cut down by a contractor, which caused concern. He bluntly said that these scenes of tree felling were "heartbreaking to see" and called on the Taipei City Government to establish a standard operating procedure (SOP) for tree management and cherish existing old trees more.
Xie Jinhe posted on Facebook that currently there are three tree-cutting incidents that have attracted the most attention, including the cutting down of a large tree directly opposite Eslite Hotel in Songyan Cultural Park, the cutting down of an old eggplant tree on Jinshan South Road, and the removal of an old banyan tree in Tianmu Circle. According to information released by the Taipei City Government, the old banyan tree in Tianmu was cut down due to infection with brown root disease, and the old banyan tree on Jinshan South Road was accidentally cut down by the contractor.
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Xie Jinhe also pointed out that the section of Songren Road near Xiangshan has become almost bare in order to build cement awnings. He said it was heartbreaking to see these scenes of tree felling.
Xie Jinhe recalled that many years ago he went for a run near Jinshan Shuiwei Fishing Port and found that a whole patch of transplanted old trees were all dead. These trees were originally located at Yonghe Wangxi Elementary School. They were transplanted to Jinshan Shuiwei Fishing Port for the construction of a parking lot by the school. However, due to the failure to consider the local environmental factors such as proximity to the sea, strong winds, and high salinity, all the transplanted old trees died.
He mentioned that during the construction of the Shuangbei MRT, decades-old trees were removed due to engineering construction, and some trees were transplanted to Fudekeng, but the survival rate was not high. Therefore, he has always believed that a great city must "find every opportunity" to comprehensively increase forest coverage.
Xie Jinhe emphasized that when Ke Wenzhe ran for mayor of Taipei in 2014 and when Chen Shizhong ran for mayor of Taipei in 2022, he advised them to plant trees as much as possible to green the city.
He said that after walking through Dunhua North and South Road, Renai Road and Zhongshan North Road over the years, the street trees on both sides of the road made people feel the beauty of Taipei. After the MRT network was completed, the small trees planted later gradually grew. However, the trees around the MRT network did not have deep roots and were not easy to grow into big trees. Therefore, the existing old trees should be cherished.
Talking about the old banyan tree in Tianmu Circle, Xie Jinhe said that this tree is 70 or 80 years old and has been rescued for three years after being infected with brown root disease. He believes that the city government can post a notice or publicly solicit tree doctors to participate in the rescue. Even if it cannot be saved in the end, it can still wait until all the leaves fall off before dealing with it. As for the accidental cutting of the old tomato on Jinshan South Road, he described it as "even more heartbreaking."
Xie Jinhe finally mentioned that Ko Wenzhe talked about SOP most often when he was mayor of Taipei, so Taipei City should also establish a set of tree management SOP. He pointed out that if a private builder wants to remove an old tree on a construction site, the procedures are quite cumbersome and complicated, but the Taipei City public agencies are so careless when dealing with the old tree, which he calls "really incredible."
