The Ricardo Nunes administration (MDB) decided on Friday (28) to suspend the license to cut 14 trees in the A Hebraica Association, a traditional club of the Jewish community in the capital, São Paulo. Permission was granted in February.
The order, signed by the Deputy Mayor of Pinheiros, Igor Lucas Gomez da Costa, stipulates that the license be canceled “on an unstable (temporary) and self-protective basis” due to “the need for an in-depth technical re-evaluation of the phytosanitary status of the tree specimens.”
The decision notes “the social uproar that arose and the widespread repercussions in the press regarding the original decision” and was taken on the same day the decision was issued. Bound It showed the mobilization of a group of club members opposed to the initiative.
The felling of trees is part of the Hebraica project to build beach tennis courts. These species are located in a forest at the back of the institution, whose headquarters are located on Rue Virginia, in the Jardim Europa region, in the Western region.
the Bound It found that former council member Gilberto Natalini, a doctor and environmentalist, brokered the suspension decision with the help of the Climate Change Executive Secretary, José Renato Nalini.
Partners criticizing the logging even organized an online petition that had gathered 2,831 members by the early hours of Saturday (29).
The forest “is one of our club’s last bastions of nature, highly valued by its members, and an essential part of the heritage of ‘A Hebraica’,” says text accompanying the petition.
The affiliates expressed their concerns to the organization’s board of directors. One of them was Professor José Goldemberg, 97, former dean of the University of the South Pacific and former secretary of state for the environment in São Paulo.
In a letter sent to the Hiberica presidency, Goldemberg said that “paper trees cannot be replaced because of their contribution to the local climate and the ecosystem that lives there.” He said compensation “is something that will take 30 years.”
“I am 97 years old, and I walk in this forest every day. This habit began when the road was still made of clay. My children and grandchildren grew up playing in this forest. Even today, I walk in it with my wife and daughter every day.”