The naturalization plan foresees planting an average of almost 3,000 trees per year.

The City Council detects a serious shortage of specimens in the center and west zone, where the strengthening of El Lauredal is being promoted to mitigate contamination

Trees in Asturias Street. | Marcos León

Source: lne.es

Author: R. Valle

The nine mini-forests whose planting is being finalized in the neighborhoods of Viesques, Moreda and La Calzada as part of the "Gijón Ecorresiliente" project are just a small part of the great proposal to generate a greener Gijón that is being promoted by the City Council. This is based on the master plan for the urban naturalization of the city, which lists a series of strategies to be followed until 2045. A central element of this master plan is the trees. The challenge? To make a quantitative and qualitative leap in terms of the presence of trees in the urban area and its benefits to expand the green fabric, mitigate climate change and improve the quality of life of the people of Gijón.

The City Council has inventoried 38,735 tree specimens with a breakdown of 28,332 specimens in parks, gardens and green areas, 7,514 in tree wells in the streets, 2,723 that have the consideration of trees in urban roads because they are in green areas but receive the same treatment of periodic pruning as the road trees and 166 specimens that are not assigned to any of these three groups. The proposal is to add another 63,884 to achieve that over the next 22 years the minimum figure is 102,619 specimens (about 2,900 on average per year). A growth of 65%.

But it is not only about planting more trees. It is also about doing it in the most suitable environments to solve current problems. Although a general look at Gijón shows a lot of green and many trees, the truth is that studies indicate that both in the center and in El Natahoyo, La Arena, El Coto and El Llano the percentage of vegetated area does not reach 10% compared to 60% that can be found in more recently developed suburbs, less population density or close proximity to rural areas.

That percentage of less than 10% drops to 2% if what is counted is specifically the wooded area and if that count is made in the Center and West with, it is indicated in the plan , "a scarce presence of trees as opposed to the urban arc of the eastern half of the city".

The proposal made in the tree plan is to design a program that, as a minimum, consolidates the planting of about 12,000 specimens every five years. This is the figure that is currently being used for the nine mini-forests that have been designed on the basis of a European funding project, a social participation action that mobilizes neighborhood organizations and schools in the three neighborhoods and a planting system known as the "Miyawaki method".

When deciding which spaces to prioritize to start with this growth, micro-actions are suggested in, for example, parking areas that lack trees or avenues such as José Manuel Palacio where the presence of trees is lower than other similar roads.

And there is a very specific recommendation for action on the Lauredal park because of the importance of trees to mitigate the effects of pollution suffered by the whole area. The Lauredal is one of the spaces that the urban naturalization master plan includes in the category of green lung of Gijón along with the parks of Isabel la Católica, Moreda, Los Pericones and the Viesques River Park. The Botanical Garden is added to this group in the document as a green lung but without a proposal for intervention given its uniqueness. The idea to enhance the Lauredal park and its effect as an anti-pollution barrier is to enrich the enclave with the planting of species of medium growth and large size such as plane trees, horse chestnut and birch. The proposal is that the action in this area be developed in the short term, which extends the action until 2030 within a general schedule that goes until 2045.

Another fact regarding Gijón's arboreal heritage: there are some 200 specimens that are considered unique because of their age, size or link to some historical or traditional element. Many of them are at risk of survival due to their advanced age or the complications generated by the urban growth around them. And about them, most of them in carbayeras, there is a municipal restoration plan that started in 2020 with an eye on 88 specimens.

A resilient city

The urban renaturalization master plan -whose initial studies were prepared over the past year and which includes the tree plan- was promoted by the City Council as one of the major strategic plans of the city and was organized as a document of analysis but also of orientation of municipal policies to be developed in the coming decades with the aim of making Gijón a resilient city in 2045. At the same time it is an assessment study of what has been done so far, taking into account that this new plan deepens the philosophy that marked the development of the Environmental Arc as a program for the management of municipal green spaces in the rural and peri-urban area over three decades.

The list of actions carried out in recent decades includes the Environmental Arch and the Botanical Garden, now celebrating its 20th anniversary, but also other initiatives much closer in time such as the elimination of El Molinón avenue as a traffic route to incorporate it as a walking area to Isabel la Católica park. A park, another of the green lungs of the city, which is also undergoing a comprehensive renovation project that goes beyond the conditioning of its green spaces. And, as everything is interconnected, in the proposed actions of the urban naturalization plan there are many coincidences with the proposals of the controversial mobility plan. From the need to bring greenery to the Muro de San Lorenzo to the creation of safe school paths where vegetation is part of a space that children can walk or cycle from home to school and from school to home.