Dominican Republic residents rally to save trees

“To escape her stifling apartment, to unwind from her monotonous job, to tune out the squalor, noise and crime all around her, Josefina Filmont has long taken refuge in the cool, green embrace of the ancient mahogany trees skirting the fortress built here by Christopher Columbus son.

So when, without public debate or notice, a city chain-saw crew showed up in May and began felling the stately trees of her favorite park in the Colonial Zone, the 50-year-old clerical worker felt her last nerve snap.

Those trees belong to the people, not the government fumed Filmont, who, like most Dominicans, had suffered in silence through decades of official indifference to ordinary people. “They are the air we breathe and the only natural thing we have to enjoy here.”

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