The best European practices for pruning and tree care will be applied in Lviv. This was reported by the Department of Ecology and Natural Resources of the Lviv City Council. Recently, European standards for tree care (Technical Standards in Tree Work) have been translated into Ukrainian. They are also available for download.
The European Tree Care Standards are a set of best practice rules for planting, pruning and maintaining trees. They were developed by 12 organisations from 11 European countries: arborists’ associations, institutes, training and research centres. The Department of Ecology and Natural Resources of the Lviv City Council also contributed to the translation of the standards into Ukrainian.
The introduction of European standards for tree care in Lviv is an important step for the integration of Ukrainian cities into the European community, according to the city’s environmental department. First and foremost, it is about modern methods of caring for green spaces: caring for the crown of trees and preserving green spaces during work on construction sites, specifying and detailing tree pruning, taking into account their age and species composition.
Experts from the city’s ecology department will ensure that European tree care standards do not contradict Ukrainian legislation, but only provide more specific explanations for contractors.
These standards are to be approved in Lviv in the near future.
“We will prepare a decision on the Procedure for the maintenance of landscaping facilities, where we will take into account the main provisions of the standards and include them in the Rules for the improvement of the Lviv city territorial community.
Adoption of these standards in Lviv will help organise the process of green space maintenance and control its quality. Unfortunately, our legislation does not provide for clear liability for violations of the rules and regulations for the care of green spaces.
For example, our legislation states that a tree must be fenced off when construction work is being carried out, but we cannot bring it to administrative liability. Now we will be able to bring a person to administrative liability for violating the landscaping and will have a document that will explain this. Such fairly clear explanations will help both the city and the contractor to respond better,” explained Halyna Mykytchak, Head of the Department of Ecology and Natural Resources at Lviv City Council.
These tree care standards were developed in Poland on the basis of European legislation. They are the closest to the Ukrainian climate zone. They will be used by all contractors involved in the greening process.
Technical Standards in Tree Work is an EU-supported project aimed at developing European technical standards for planting, pruning, and caring for trees.
You can download the European standard in Ukrainian here.