Fez Residents Protest Tree Removal for Boulevard Renovation Project

The city of Fez is ready for modernization but not at any cost. To renovate Mohammed V Boulevard, the town hall is determined to uproot the trees that are there. Unhappy with this situation, the inhabitants and the associative actors have mobilized to prevent this destruction of the environment.

For Mhamed Benkirane, member of the Moroccan Forum of Environmental Initiatives and the Moroccan Alliance for Climate and Sustainable Development, quoted by Le360, this behavior is destructive and is the result of a unilateral decision to decimate the trees, taken after having excluded the members of civil society and environmental specialists.

Proud to see the city reveal itself thanks to this redevelopment project of Mohammed V Boulevard, Benkirane proposes an alternative solution to alleviate the congestion of this boulevard without uprooting the trees.

For his part, Omar El Fassi El Fihri, Deputy Mayor of Fez, refutes these accusations, and specifies that the redevelopment of Mohammed V Boulevard is part of a global program of the City Council, decided a long time ago. "We are indeed working with members of civil society," he affirms to the same source.

As for the uprooting of the trees, the local official explains that it is a "necessity, to widen the Boulevard in order to allow greater fluidity of traffic".