I thought I read that the trees are being replaced with "native" trees ie palms trees. As the trees that were being cut down were not native to the island when they were planted.
bob
Not all palm trees are native to the island (for example Date Palms -the ones along Winston Churchill Avenue comes to mind-, Saw Palmettos -the palmettos which have spines similar to the ones a typical Rose flower has, etc). However, the authorities seem to have an affinity for the Royal Palm which is native to the island.
The positives about palms, particularly native palms like the Palma Real or the Hispaniolan Palmetto (the one that has a blue tint rather than green) and hundreds of other types is that they provide a luxurious tropical natural beauty to the avenues and cityscape. Americans know very well that palm trees equals money in the tourist trade, which explains the ridiculous number of palms and the ridiculous amount of money devoted to replacing fallen palms along roads and such in places like Florida. You can tell most of the palms in Florida are not native because the moment you drive away from civilization what you will notice is mostly pine trees, giant oaks with Spanish moss, and cabbage Palmettos. If the plans to turn Santo Domingo into a major destination continue to go forward (the authorities have already attracted a major cruiseline to use the Santo Domingo port as homeport as part of this plan), then the planting of more palms in the city is a given, especially if the target market is North America and much of Western Europe.
In anycase, palm trees fare much better in tropical storms because the trees poses little resistance to the fearce winds, unlike other types of trees, especially non-native trees like Poincianas (ie. Flanboy?n, etc) which are not only messy after a storm, but poses a threat to the safety of people and property as branches are broken and flown, they may fall causing damage to property, etc. Overall, palms are better designed to survive tropical storms than are most other trees.
Of the non-palm trees which are native to the Caribbean region, they tend to lose their leaves quite easily in a tropical storm, which reduces the amount of resistance to fearce winds and thus, makes the tree fare better such storms; unlike introduced species which are the trees that causes the most damage to themselves and to property/people in such storms.
But, as Hillbilly said, it only works if the tree has a well developed root system. Until then, well.... :cheeky:
The negatives of palm trees is that they don't really produce much shade, unless they grow in clumps and Coconut palms poses a threat during storms with their oversized nuts often times becoming lose and flying through the air like a canon and causing tremendous damage. Other than that, I don't see other negatives of the trees, particularly native trees.
Well, the only other problem could be a lack of diversity in the trees being planted. If a disease that attacks such trees sweeps through Santo Domingo... well that could be a problem not just for the cityscape, but for much of the country since few places on the island doesn't have at least a few Royal Palms growing somewhere.
-NALs
