A 30-metre-high, 200-year-old Norway spruce will decorate St. Peter’s Square in Rome during the Christmas period. But the residents of the mountain community near Lake Garda, where the Christmas tree is supposed to come from, want to prevent that. A citizens’ committee has now hired a lawyer to take legal action to protect the tree.
“We are against this senseless slaughter of pine trees during the Christmas season,” said the committee from the town of Ledro in Trentino, northern Italy. “There is no point in talking about damage caused by climate change if we then perpetuate these kinds of practices, which would make a centuries-old Norway spruce the victim. It would be nice to decorate our pine tree without cutting it down. Many young people have developed a different feeling for nature in recent years and are helping us with our cause,” the committee said in a letter.
The citizens of Ledro also referred to Pope Francis’ encyclicals in which he calls for respect for the environment: “We ask His Holiness to prevent this deforestation and come to us in the valley to admire the beauty of this place,” they demand from the residents. “Why not consider making an artistic tree from the wood of trees that have fallen due to climatic events?” says a petition launched on the online platform change.org.
There are always controversies about Christmas trees
It is not the first time that the Christmas tree adorning St. Peter’s Square has been at the center of controversy. After environmentalists protested in 2022 against the planned felling of a 200-year-old pine tree in the Apennines that would have been given to the Pope as a Christmas tree for St. Peter’s Square, Francis had to make do with a smaller and younger tree. Instead of the silver fir from a forest area under EU protection that the municipality of Rosello in the Apennines in Abruzzo wanted to give away, the Pope received one from a tree nursery.
In 1989, when John Paul II was Pope, there were protests by Austrian environmentalists against the felling of a 32-meter-high spruce tree in Kopfing, Upper Austria (Schärding district), which was to decorate St. Peter’s Square that year. Despite protests from the Nature Conservation Association, the fir was sent on a journey to Rome on a semi-trailer. In 2006, during the pontificate of Joseph Ratzinger, there was an appeal from the WWF of the southern Italian region of Calabria, which donated the pine tree for St. Peter’s Square that year.
Source: Krone
I am Wallace Jones, an experienced journalist. I specialize in writing for the world section of Today Times Live. With over a decade of experience, I have developed an eye for detail when it comes to reporting on local and global stories. My passion lies in uncovering the truth through my investigative skills and creating thought-provoking content that resonates with readers worldwide.
