Two weeks ago tree festival day in Cuijk became tree mourning day. A whole bunch of saplings were mercilessly mowed down by a contractor. Part of the landscaped forest became a meadow again in one fell swoop. The municipality of Land van Cuijk has investigated what went wrong and is now explaining it.
In November, 56 children from Haps went to the site behind the noise barrier at the A73 to plant trees. The children were taken there by buses. They planted a total of 5000 trees there.
But in mid-June things went wrong. A contractor cut down a large part of the trees. Of the 5,000 trees, about 1,300 were lost, it now appears. The mowing action hit Arie van Hees and Wim Koetsier of nature club IVN hard. “It has become a day of mourning for trees,” said Wim shortly after he discovered mowing.
Farmer ordered
The municipality of Land van Cuijk also regretted the mowing action at the time, but could not immediately say what exactly went wrong. Now, two weeks later, it works. And it’s a bit complicated.
The piece of land near the A73 belonged to a farmer. But that land has come into the possession of the municipality of Land van Cuijk. The farmer was allowed to continue to use the land until the municipality would do so itself. The farmer has ordered to mow there. He apparently did not know that the municipality had started using the land in the meantime, the municipality explains in a statement.
Whether this is because the municipality of Land van Cuijk has not informed the farmer, or whether the farmer has overlooked this, is not clear in the statement.
Fences or signs should prevent re-mowing
The municipality says it wants to restore things. She says that she will plant trees there again on the spot that has now been mowed. The municipality has contacted the school in Haps. She wants to go with the school to see if the school can help repair the damage. For example, by planting trees there again on Tree Planting Day.
In the meantime, agreements have also been made with the previous owner that mowing is no longer allowed there. To prevent this in the future, we are looking into whether there should be a fence or whether there should be signs near the field.
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