El Comandante Hernández leads ‘Tree Army’ in defense of Mexico City’s trees

Scooting on his electric skateboard through a southern Mexico City neighborhood, Arturo Hernández spots a likely target for his next action and uploads a photo to social media calling his followers to help. A couple of days later, he and several of them are swinging sledgehammers at a thick layer of concrete suffocating the roots of an ash tree when a pair of police officers arrive and ask to see a permit.

“We do not need permits to liberate the tree,” Hernández tells one of the officers with a grin. "It’s as if you asked me to have a permit to pick up trash from the street.”

The officer responds with his own smile, turns to his partner and they walk away. The hammering resumes.

This is El Ejercito de Arboles — The Tree Army — and Hernández is El Comandante, its commander. Hernández, a community activist who developed a following over years of tackling the city's problems in humorous online posts, launched The Tree Army in May in response to growing complaints from his followers about vandalized trees in their neighborhoods. Its mission is to protect and improve Mexico City's urban forest, whether it's chipping away at unauthorized concrete, confronting illegal cutting or planting trees in areas of need.

“I always tell people, if we can’t take care of the tree in front of our home, how can we expect to save a place like the Amazon?” Hernández said.

Trees are essential assets in cities, where they provide cooling shade, reduce pollution and contribute to green space. They take up water, helping to prevent flooding at a time when climate change is leading to more intense rainfall events. All this is especially welcome in Mexico City, which has dealt with flooding in recent weeks and which suffers from severe air pollution in a metropolitan area that sprawls to some 22 million people.

Launching The Tree Army was a natural move for Hernández, who a decade ago founded Los Supercivicos, a social media-based campaign that takes on community issues through humor and satire. Los Supercivicos videos have featured him taunting cars obstructing bike lanes, performing skits on the subway to promote voter participation and returning garbage to people who litter, for example.

Hernández said he drew more than 100,000 views for each of his first few Tree Army videos. The “army” itself is small — an informal core group of five or six people, ranging from environmental activists to arborists to residents — but Hernández is always quick to recruit bystanders to swing a sledgehammer or otherwise help. He has a GoFundMe page to raise money for the work.

He said he's responded to about a dozen cases of tree vandalism since starting the group, and now fields more than 15 messages a day from people reporting vandalized trees throughout the city. Common complaints include businesses cutting down trees to improve their visibility, people incorrectly trimming trees and people pouring concrete over the soil at a tree's base, perhaps to add parking or to avoid maintenance headaches like picking up after dogs or clearing out litter.

Hernández said the ash tree he and his followers were trying to free was suffering from concrete that a nearby food preparation business poured on its roots to add parking area for delivery motorcycles. Workers at the business declined to comment to an Associated Press journalist.

After 20 minutes of intense hammering, the roots of the tree began to appear through the broken concrete. A neighborhood resident brought water for the workers, who sipped, then wiped their foreheads and resumed hammering. Some people walking past took an interest in the action and began to crowd around.

“Do one of you guys want to take a swing?” Hernández said to the observers. “The people that are most affected by this is you."

Not everyone supports The Tree Army's work. Hernández said he has been chased and threatened. He said he always approaches a negative encounter with humor and views it as an opportunity to educate those opposing their work.

“We are called The Tree Army because sometimes these are battles," he said.

María Toledo Garibaldi, a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute of Ecology (INECOL) and an urban tree expert, praised The Tree Army's work, and said such groups are making up for government inaction.

“I think it is important that the authorities begin to make clearer and stricter regulations on what can be cut, what can be trimmed, what can be planted, where you can plant it," Garibaldi said. The city should establish an urban forest management plan, she said.

Fanny Ruiz Palacios, a spokeswoman for the city’s Secretariat of the Environment, said the city has developed programs to care for trees, but that care along secondary roads depends on the various borough governments.

When the ash tree was finally free of concrete, The Tree Army carried the rubble to a truck to be carried away, then applauded each other and exchanged hugs in the tree's shade.

Humberto Cruz, a resident of the neighborhood, had joined the action after seeing Hernández’s call on social media.

“I have a son, and I want the best for him. One of the few things I can do is take care of the environment for him. He’s the future and he is going to be able to enjoy this,” Cruz said, pointing to the ash tree.

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