Dutch campaigners in last bid to save Anne Frank tree
Campaigners fighting to save a diseased tree in Amsterdam that was fondly described by Anne Frank in her diary about life in hiding under Nazi occupation made a last bid Thursday to stop it being felled.
The Dutch Tree Foundation and residents of the neighbourhood where the huge horse chestnut stands lodged a final appeal to municipal authorities not to cut it down as planned on Wednesday.
They contest the authorities’ claim that 72 percent of the tree is diseased, and therefore could blow over at any time. The tree’s owner wants it destroyed because under Dutch law he is liable to any damage done if this occurs.
Although a licence to fell the tree has already been granted, the authorities had given campaigners until January to come up with a rescue plan. On Tuesday they said a new assessment of the tree required urgent action.
The tree, estimated to be more than 150 years old, sits in the garden of a canal house on Amsterdam’s Keizersgracht. It is overlooked by the annex the Frank family hid in, which has been turned into a museum.
Amsterdam authorities plan to plant a tree genetically identical to the diseased chestnut in its place.
Read full article: AFP, 14 November 2007
The following video clip shows the diseased tree (Dutch spoken)
Here is the new chestnut tree that will replace the original tree. (Dutch spoken)
