Moroccans campaign against 'indiscriminate palm tree planting,' call for sustainable, diverse alternatives

In most regions of the Kingdom, Moroccans are leading a large-scale campaign on social media against what they describe as the “indiscriminate planting” of palm trees, calling for local authorities to favor trees that are suitable for each local environment instead, based around a sustainable professional landscape system.

The campaign garnered a lot of attention; several activists interacted with the cause, especially on the social networking site “Facebook”, sharing pictures of recent plantings of palm trees of all kinds in a number of Moroccan cities in “posts” denouncing the matter.

In parallel with the “Facebook Campaign,” a petition on global campaigning and petition site “Avaaz” collected over 3,400 signatures out of the 5,000 required, particularly directed to the Ministries of Land Development and Urban Policy and Energy Transition and Sustainable Development.

Visionary engineer and head of the ‘Morocco Environment 2050’ movement Salima Belemkaddem said that the call to stop palm planting and appeal for afforestation of rural towns and villages is reaching its third stage, after correspondence with several officials and ministries, including the Interior Ministry concerned with territorial collectivities.

Belemkaddem, the campaign’s launcher, added in a statement to Hespress that “this problem seeds in the overlap of the political side with the profit-interest side related to deals and investments in palm nurseries, as well as the lack of an environmental awareness,” explaining that the environment “has yet to figure among the priorities of Moroccan administrators and elected officials.”

The landscape architecture expert believes that city administrators “have yet to understand the tightly coiled relationship between climate change, drought, and the absence of afforestation in cities and villages,” noting that they believe afforestation to be only an “aesthetic aspect”, when its services go beyond the aesthetic to offer ecological, health and economic benefits.

The same spokeswoman pointed out that “Moroccans spend more time outside the house than they do inside it, because of the heated temperatures in several cities,” and that therefore, “appropriate conditions and outdoor spaces must be provided to accommodate Moroccans’ desire to spend leisure time outside.”

The head of the Morocco Environment 2050 movement concluded that “Until the goal of this campaign, which continues to attract those interested in a healthier environment and better aesthetics for cities, is achieved, concerned ministries will be re-contacted and other steps will be taken to draw the attention of the parties responsible for cities and village.”