If it were not for the fact that the rainfall indicates the exact opposite, in the case of the ficus of San Jacinto, in the heart of the Seville neighborhood of Triana, it could be perfectly affirmed that a lot has rained since just almost a year ago, the Seville City Council authorized the felling of the branches of this specimen of 24 meters high, 110 years old and declared an Asset of Cultural Interest. During this time, the popular mobilization —with activists perched and chained to the trunk— delayed the works, allowing a court to adopt the precautionary measure of suspending the pruning. The consistory agreed, with the acquiescence of conservationists and the Dominican order, owner of the church in which the branches of this hundred-year-old tree cling, to entrust the CSIC with a study to analyze a solution that would make its survival viable. Another court opened an investigation against the municipal government to investigate whether it committed prevarication when it gave the green light to logging and the municipal elections resulted in a change of councilor, which aims to put an end to the succession of controversies that have surrounded this unique species. The new mayor, the popular José Luis Sanz, has announced this Tuesday that it will be the City Council that will take care of the Dominican garden and with it that of the ficus, after obtaining the transfer of the compass of the ecclesial complex.
“Last Friday the City Council closed an agreement with the parish of San Jacinto and with the parish priest to take charge of the maintenance of that ficus”, the mayor said on Tuesday. “The small square, the small triangle where the ficus is located becomes municipal property”, he indicated in reference to the garden that rises at the entrance to the temple. Sanz has also remarked that this decision is the one that the socialist municipal government should have adopted when three years ago the order warned that it could not financially take care of the conservation of the tree, whose branches, now laminated, reached a meter in length. diameter.
A municipal spokesman points out to this newspaper that the agreement with the order will be signed throughout this week and that its object is the transfer of that space for a few years —which have not yet been specified— in exchange for the conservation of the enclosure that extends to the entrance of the church. The intention of the consistory is that the place becomes a public park for the enjoyment of all Sevillians – currently it can only be accessed when the parish opens the gate that gives access – at a time to be stipulated.
“From the citizen platform in defense of the San Jacinto ficus we have to congratulate ourselves, although we are cautious because nothing is signed or written,” says Valle López-Tello, spokesman for Not a tree less, one of the environmental organizations that have mobilized for the preservation of this singular tree. “What we have been demanding is that the public ownership of the ficus and the fence be returned and that the entire enclave be taken care of by the Parks and Gardens service,” he adds.
It was on May 31, 2022 when the previous government team granted the license to fell the ficus macrophylla whose foliage, escaping from the wrought iron fences that delimit the parish, attracted the glances of passers-by who entered Triana along Calle de San Jacinto and aroused the interest of conservation groups in Seville. The Dominicans proceeded to activate it on August 17 of last year. If the felling had been carried out, the tree would no longer be standing, but a court, which was studying the suspension of pruning before it was authorized, stopped its death. Now that robustness has been reduced to a vast trunk that begins to be covered by green stems that glimpse its rebirth.
With the agreement signed by the city council, the agreement signed by the consistory and the Dominicans to entrust the CSIC with a study on the feasibility of the ficus, including the option of transplanting it to another location, is null and void, as the mayor has remarked. It is the measure that was reached to settle the judicial process opened by the Andalusian Gardening Association (AMJA), which was the one who requested the precautionary measure to stop logging, taken by mutual agreement last April by which it was approved to allocate 78,099 euros —to continue with 32,920 in 2024―, as a nominal grant to the order to cover the commission of the opinion to the CSIC. “With this solution, the City Council will not have to spend those more than 111,000 euros on a study,” said Sanz. The municipal interlocutor points out that the previous corporation had only approved a budget modification to enable this item, but that the agreement with the religious had not yet been signed, nor had any commitment been made with the CSIC.
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Branch fall since 2012
Original state of the ficus in an image included in the report of the parish of San Jacinto.
The new agreement settles the problems that the maintenance of the ficus has caused over the last years. The most serious in March 2021 when one of its huge branches fell to the ground, hitting several passers-by, including the ONCE saleswoman who used to bet under her shadow and who ended up in the intensive care unit after suffering a broken leg. several vertebrae, skull contusion and a pneumothorax. In 2016, the City Council commissioned a technical report on the situation of the ficus and a “dead palm tree” also located in the front patio of the San Jacinto church, after another branch of the ficus fell into the patio in October, this time without cause damages. In 2012 another pruning had already been carried out to reduce its crown as a result of a similar episode that did cause damage to street furniture and the building itself. Then it was warned that “the owner of the land, the Dominican Order, has not carried out any revision or maintenance action on the ficus specimen.”
“The City Council and the parish have been passing the ball to each other in recent years, but nobody has taken care of maintenance,” says López-Tello. “The ficus is a BIC, if it had been a building instead of a tree, no one would have questioned the obligation to maintain it,” he adds.
There is no official information on what it costs to maintain this ficus, but after the 2021 accident, it turned out that the parish acknowledged having spent 4,000 euros at the time, without specifying when. Municipal sources confirm that the emergency felling that the firefighters then had to do amounted to 12,000 euros.
For conservationists, this entire journey, of which next Thursday will be the exact year, also involves a parable in a civic key. “They did not expect our reaction in the middle of August. All this has shown a lack of awareness, responsibility and vision,” says López-Tello. Next Thursday, in commemoration of the anniversary of the mobilization, the citizen platform in defense of the ficus has organized a day of events that “finally will have a festive character”, as the activist points out.
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