During this Monday morning, in the Legislature provincial, the meeting of the Commission on the Environment, Climate Change, Disaster Risk, Territorial Affairs and Housing was held. There, projects that seek to modify the Law of Wooded Public.
Specifically, it was detailed about one in particular carried out by the legislators: Marcellin Churches, Germán Vicchi and Pedro Serra. During the meeting, the project was presented through the explanation of the senator who was mayor of Guaymallén.
It is important to highlight that the proposal talks about replacing articles 5, 20, 22, 24, 51 of the Public Tree Law No. 7874 of the province of Mendoza.
In relation to article 5, for the purposes of this law, “the Provincial State will exercise jurisdiction over the trees that grow on roads, streets, routes and places of public or private domain of the Provincial State; Provincial Directorate of Roads; General Department of Irrigation and Channel Inspections of their respective local jurisdictions; and of the National State”.
Likewise, the municipalities will exercise exclusive jurisdiction over the trees that grow on roads, streets, routes and public or private places under municipal ownership.
A key piece of information to keep in mind, to which you had access MDZ Through the “My Tree” application that reflects statistics on trees in Mendoza, there are a total of about 615,835 trees in the province. There are still about 30 thousand more planting sites available. From those trees planted, there are 582,714 that are vital. Guaymallén and Godoy Cruz are the departments that have the most trees in Mendoza.
The senators’ proposal indicates that in article 20, the Undersecretary of Environment of the province, through the Directorate of Biodiversity and Ecopark, will be the enforcement authority for the provincial and national jurisdiction of road entities and the General Department of Irrigation. , or the one that replaces it in the future.
For municipal jurisdiction, each municipality in particular must establish, through municipal ordinance, the area responsible for exercising enforcement authority.
While in article 22, the competent authorities of this law for the provincial jurisdiction will be the Provincial Directorate of Roads, the National Directorate of Roads, the General Department of Irrigation and the inspections of channels in their respective local jurisdictions. The competent authorities of this law for municipal jurisdiction will be established through the Ordinance of the Deliberative Council of each Municipality.
On the other hand, in article 24, for the eradication, felling, lowering, cleaning, pruning and clearing of public trees, the competent authorities in each jurisdiction must have the authorization of the enforcement authority of this Law, corresponding to its jurisdiction.
Meanwhile, in article 51, official entities that request eradication or pruning of the trees that grow within the property occupied by these organizations must previously have the hierarchical consent of the corresponding ministerial area or its municipal equivalent.
The initiative
During the meeting it was discussed that the objective of this bill is to update and improve the Public Tree Law No. 7874, providing greater and better functionality to it.
“This law was an important step forward in terms of putting the state of public trees, which had been showing marked signs of deterioration over the years, at the center of the debate. During its debate and later during the reports of the Provincial Council of Public Trees, the causes of the aforementioned deterioration were thoroughly analyzed. To make an adequate synthesis we can say that the abandonment of the culture of tree care summarizes all or the most important deficiencies found,” reads a fragment of the proposal.
It is important to highlight that this initiative will continue to be analyzed in Committees. Representatives of the Undersecretariat of Environment as well as the different provincial municipalities are expected to attend.
