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Protesters in São Paulo combat facilities tasks that would cut thousands of trees

Residents of the city of São Paulo, among Latin America's biggest and most builtup, have actually long fought for more green spaces. However, last year, the city announced plans that would do simply the reverse: take down thousands of trees to construct a tunnel and expand a garbage dump in some of its treeless areas. Protests took place.

Last November, demonstrators took to the streets in São Mateus, a peripheral neighborhood in the east of São Paulo, to demonstration against a project to expand a garbage dump which would cut 10,000 trees. Structure work for a tunnel, in the southern part of the city, triggered another protest that month.

I tied myself to a tree to stop the structure work, stated Marco Martins, a spokesman for Rede Sustentabilidade, a. political celebration that opposed the projects, during the demonstration. against the tunnel.

Up until now, the protesters are winning. State prosecutors. obtained a preliminary court judgment to stop the tunnel project. in November, and, last month, legislators who oppose the land fill. gotten an injunction to suspend it. Both judgments were based on. claims the tasks would be hazardous for the environment.

The floods, when it fills in the region near the. land fill, are disorderly, stated Denny Gomes, a 31-year-old poet and. law graduate and among the leaders of the motion against the. garbage dump project.

The city conflicts those claims, and prepares to appeal both. court judgments. In a statement, the city called the land fill an. ecopark that will reduce the amount of material destined for. landfill and increase recycling. In addition, the city has. swore to plant more trees that the tasks are set up to. take down.

Mayor Ricardo Nunes has likewise argued that the tunnel is. necessary to improve traffic in the area, according to a video. he posted on his Instagram account in November.

We will overturn this preliminary choice, since. everything is fine, we will continue this work and I will. inaugurate this work, he said.

Specialists concur that traffic and lack of urban mobility are. some of São Paulo's most intractable problems. However, at the same. time, the city also frequently suffers from flooding, specifically. in peripheral areas that lack green areas.

(source: Reuters)