"How can be preserved nice tree-lined avenues along our roads be preserved and how can the safety of public traffic be ensured at the same time?" is the question which predominates in discussions in both the media and in professional forums and it is seemingly insoluble. As the civic association Arnika proposes, it is enough to look around Europe and get inspired. Prof. Peters from Eberswalde University of Applied Sciences introduced us to his experience from creating the so-called German Avenue Road, a tourist attraction of our neighbouring country, at a round table with professionals and representatives from the Moravian-Silesian Region. Faculty of Science students from the University of Ostrava who joined the project of carrying out a tree-lined avenue survey will be also shown, in practise, how to map trees.
"It is crucial to know which treasure is hidden in your countryside in order to protect and preserve tree-lined avenues in our countryside" claims prof. Jurgen Peters from the University of Applied Science, an expert on the protection and recovery of road avenues. "We started with a detailed survey of tree-lined avenues out of which a conception of its protection and also a financial plan arose. A tree grows for hundreds of years and therefore our approach must be particularly long-term" adds Peters.
"Tree-lined avenues along roads have a great potential for the development of regions. The German Avenue Road has been connecting significant cultural monuments with tree-lined avenues ever since the year 2000. Travellers can visit natural and cultural monuments and restaurants, hotels and have other adventures which are offered by their providers at the same time" says a conservationist from the Insula Rugia Association Annette Gross.
"Tree-lined avenue preservation was discussed in Germany twenty years ago and now they do not want to hear a word against it" says RNDr. Marcela Klemensová from Arnika. This organization invited Jurgen Peters and Annette Gross to the Czech Republic.
They met students from the University of Ostrava on Wednesday and they explained to them, in the terrain, how trees are mapped in Germany. It is the University of Ostrava who is creating a database of tree-lined avenues on the territory of the Moravian-Silesian region according to a German model. Palacký University in Olomouc is carryeng out a similar task in the Zlín region. "Next year a Moravian tree-lined avenue database will be introduced by Arnika" adds Klemensová.
"We examined the original methodology of docent Létal from Palacký University in Olomouc and we have added several parameters in order to use records about individual trees more effectively for database creation purposes. For each avenue there are up to forty-eight attributes to be observed and we get inspired by the methodology used in Germany as well. It is crucial to specify, for each tree-lined avenue, a purpose for which we wish to use the data. Particular attributes are defined according to individual consultation. It is a quite demanding task; only in the Frýdeckomístecko region there are over two hundred avenues. Currently, we have surveyed almost all the Moravian-Silesian region. We wish to cover the rest till the end of the year. We will enter the data into the database for further use" describes Mgr. Tereza Aubrechtová the involvement of the University of Ostrava.
"We appreciate the fact that Arnika has risen to the occasion of tree-lined avenue mapping in Moravia. We mainly welcome the fact that, in various regions, a database will be created in accordance with the same identical methodology and therefore the data will be comparable. We assume that the created database should become a part of the Moravian-Silesian region´s information system for the environment" said Daniel Havlík (ČSSD), Deputy of the President of the Moravian-Silesian Region for Transport, Road Economy and the Environment.
"In total, 44 mil. CZK was paid for roadside green areas maintenance in 2013. Green area maintenance does not include only the planting of new trees and bushes; it also includes, e. g. tree pruning or cutting overmature trees and the protection of threatened trees. For the coming period we are preparing, withthea cooperation of the State Fund for Transport Infrastructure, other tree-planting projects along 2nd and 3rd class streets under our control as trees along roads significantly improve the environment in their surroundings" claimed Mgr. Milan Novák, an Associate Director of Road Management in the Moravian-Silesian region.
Arnika activities for the preservation of tree-lined avenues in the Czech Republic are supported bythe Swiss-Czech Cooperation Programme via the Environmental Partnership and the German Federal Environmental Foundation DBU.
Supported by a grant from Switzerland through the Swiss Contribution to the enlarged European Union and the German Federal Environmental Foundation.
