Vilnius tightens the order: one may have to pay over a million euros for a cut down tree

The Vilnius City Municipality drastically tightens the tree preservation policy and increases the restorative value of trees by about ten times. Compensation corresponding to it should be paid to the city for all vegetation – legally or illegally – cut down. For illegally felling a protected fairly mature tree one would have to pay even six or seven figure sums.

At today’s meeting of the Vilnius City Council, an increase in the rates of the restorative value of mature urban greenery with a diameter (girth) of more than 80 cm was approved. The value of a particular tree is determined by its species, diameter, and place of growth. At the next Council meeting, a vote will be taken on higher rates for all trees in the capital.

“Today we need to send a very clear message to all real estate developers who think that it pays to commit crime and cut down trees illegally. Adopting a much stricter procedure than before, we say that cutting down a tree for selfish interests is not only a formal, but also a financially very painful crime. I am talking about hundreds of thousands and sometimes millions for one tree. In this way, together with the Ministry of Environment, we want to protect all the valuable and protected trees in the capital, which have delighted the citizens for decades and sometimes even centuries. The new resolution will allow this to be done much more efficiently than until now,” said Vilnius City Mayor Valdas Benkunskas.

Amendments to the Greenery Law of the Republic of Lithuania entered into force in May this year, which allow municipalities to determine the restorative value of trees themselves – the obligation to pay appropriate compensation to the municipal budget for a cut or injured tree, for which new plantations are later planted. Additionally, trees need to be replanted so that the sum of their trunk diameters would be equal to the diameter of the cut tree trunk.

Restoration value should not be paid only for felled invasive plants, including ash-leafed maples, white-flowered robinias, as well as trees with a trunk thickness of up to 20 centimetres on the land plots of natural persons, fruit trees, severely damaged, withered, diseased trees and trees posing danger, greenery growing in the security zone of power lines, communications or other networks. This also does not apply to plants in garden communities.

At the next meeting of the Council, it will be proposed to approve that the value of the city’s trees be indexed according to the place where the trees grow – individual trees, in the centre or near the streets, are valued more expensively. The division of tree species into four value groups remains. As before, oaks, maples, hornbeams, ash trees, as well as rare decorative plants, are the most expensive. The lowest restoration value is determined for grey alders, goat willows, quaking aspens, and some types of poplars.