A Chinese court on Wednesday sentenced 11 people to up to four years in prison for damaging a protected 2,600-year-old tree, considered sacred by the inhabitants of the place where it is planted.
The tree is a nanmu, a species that only grows in some parts of Asia, dating to the Spring and Autumn Warring States period (between 722 BC – 479 BC), and was found in the town of Nanshao, where the locals venerate the huge specimen, whose diameter reaches almost two meters in its central area, according to the local newspaper El Papel. The town is in the province of Guizhou, in the southwest of the Asian country.
In early February 2022, the Nanshao people discovered that an area at the base of the trunk had been cut, severely injuring the tree, which they call “Old King Nambu”.
The subsequent investigation found that, between September and December 2021, the defendants cut up to 200 pieces of this and other nanmu trees to sell, obtaining a profit of 414,700 yuan (54,972 euros).
In addition to seriously damaging the thousand-year-old specimen of Nanshao, the condemned man caused the death of seven other trees. In addition to serving a prison sentence, they will have to pay for the recovery of the “Old King Nambu”.
China is stepping up its national tree planting and conservation drive as part of efforts to meet its commitment to peak carbon emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.
In 1981, Tree Planting Day was instituted, in which millions of people participate each year in order to create “great green walls” on the outskirts of cities such as Beijing, to retain sand and other polluting particles.
Source: TSF
