Every time Madrid’s Retiro Park and the city’s other eight historic gardens are closed in application of the “Exceptionally Adverse Weather Conditions” protocol, criticism of the city’s administration increases for preventing the use of the city’s large green lungs. that can act as a climatic shelter against the heat ―Barcelona launched a network of spaces in 2019 that will already be added this summer 202, while there is nothing comparable in Madrid. “We have a mayor who defies all logic. The trees provide shade and lower the temperature, but Almeida doesn’t seem to understand this and continues to close parks,” Rita Maestre, spokeswoman for Más Madrid, tweeted on Monday. “The protocol that led to the closure was approved by Manuela Carmena”, answered the mayor. Away from the political turmoil, Many citizens have expressed their astonishment and complaint on Twitter.
We have a mayor who defies all logic. It’s common sense that trees provide shade and lower the temperature. But Almeida does not seem to understand this and continues to close parks and cut down trees with the high temperatures.
– Rita Maestre 🌾 (@Rita_Maestre) July 25, 2022
El Retiro, El Capricho, Sabatini, the rose garden of the Parque del Oeste, Juan Carlos I, Juan Pablo II and the villas of Fuente del Berro, Los Molinos and Torre de Arias closed on Sundays from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m after the red alert was activated – the maximum of a scale of four, implying a very high risk of falling branches and trees – due to unfavorable wind conditions and high temperatures. The State Meteorological Agency (Aemet) expected gusts of up to 55 kilometers per hour and 39° – in the end it was 45 and 39.2°. On Monday, between 12:00 and 18:00 the alarm was orange “Third level, significant risk” in the nine parks for which, among others, access to children’s, sports and senior areas and the gardens of Cecilio Rodríguez was prohibited. It was also advised not to stay under the trees.
This newspaper, through the press service, asked for explanations from Borja Carabante, Environment Delegate, and Francisco Muñoz, General Manager for Green Spaces, but the City Council declined to make any statements – “We have nothing more or nothing new to say” – referring to his communications and videos. More Madrid has responded. “The way Almeida applies the protocol is meaningless and incomprehensible,” say party circles, for which “the protocol undoubtedly needs to be reviewed.”
The 110 hectares of the Parque de @_Retirement are closed today, a holiday in Madrid, for the second day in a row. The leadership of the city council, which condemns the population to spend the heat wave on the asphalt, is indecent. where is the mayor @AlmeidaPP_ ? pic.twitter.com/e997ImJbWV
— Ignacio Bazarra (@iBazarra) July 25, 2022
According to Más Madrid, “There is an urgent need for rigor and transparency. We do not know why the parks have been closed many times, there is no objective data to support this. It doesn’t make sense that in the middle of a heat wave it would only be justified if there was a lot of wind, but it wasn’t always like that,” concludes the party, which the real reason for politics is that “Almeida is allergic to parks and he isn’t wants to hear about climate change.” More Madrid points to a fundamental problem: Madrid needs to be rebuilt to adapt to the new climate reality.
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The city council, which has an observer to check the status of parks and alerts, recalls that the protocol “has the primary objective of ensuring the safety of citizens and park employees.” In a video, the director of the green spaces explains that the closure is applied to “avoid the risks that derive from the dynamics of the trees”. “There are two basic criteria, speed and temperature. It has been scientifically proven that depending on both parameters, there is a greater risk of the trees falling or branches breaking, with the consequent danger,” says Francisco Muñoz, who points out that the historical trees are closed because they are there the largest specimens are “more durable, more susceptible to stress from heat, wind or soil moisture”. Even with healthy and windless trees, branches can suddenly fall off in high heat, the so-called summer branch fall.
The plan has four levels – from green, normality to red – that are activated when certain thresholds for wind, soil moisture, temperature, rain and snow are expected to be exceeded, according to the daily bulletin that Aemet sends to the city Council at 5:00 p.m. for the next day, the consistory explains in a note. But how is it possible for days without weather warnings to trigger the log? It usually happens and the answer is because both semaphores measure different things. Aemet alerts are activated when normal levels are exceeded and the protocol can pose a risk in certain weather conditions at a park like El Retiro, which dates back to 1767 and has 20,000 trees – a 2015 report suggests that 7% are old or decrepit.
For example on Sunday The entire community of Madrid had a yellow display from Aemet – the lowest – because of the heat, but not because of the wind, and the same thing happened on Monday. “The calculations are made via a mathematical formula that crosses general data with the location and area of the parks, i.e sometimes they do not agree with the general forecasts, explains the consistory. “Although it seems that the weather is good, without too much wind, there are meteorological factors that can act simultaneously and favor the falling of branches,” adds Rubén del Campo, spokesman for Aemet.
Levels and measures of the Madrid Parks Protocol.
The protocol was approved by the Carmena government in office in June 2019, but the idea arose a long time ago. In June 2014, a 38-year-old man died when a 400-kilo branch fell on him while he was playing retiro with his children. Such was the excitement that the following month Ana Botella set up a committee of experts to assess the condition of the park and in February 2015 announced a plan to close all or part of it.
In May 2016, the first protocol began to be used, but in March 2018 a four-year-old boy died after being crushed by a giant jaw. This event led to the review of the protocol and the tightening of the conditions for the closure: it used to require winds of more than 85 kilometers, now 55 at more than 35 ° and 65 at lower temperatures. The result is lightning: Between May 2021 and 2022, according to El Periódico de España, the nine parks were completely or partially closed for 161 days, almost every second one. According to the city council, there were six closures from April to June this year.
Anxiety plans behind the protocol. “The closure is a terrible idea,” says Luciano Labajos, a gardener and member of Ecologists in Action, who recalls that “in Paris, park hours were extended during the heatwave.” “It should be more permissive in Madrid but as there have been falls from tree branches in previous waves they don’t want any accidents and want to be cured in good health. In the waves, the wind dies down, so there is no point in closing the parks. It is true that branches in poor condition can quickly dry out, break and fall, but there are alternative solutions such as increasing vigilance or restricting access to certain areas but not closing them completely, because in the end the evil is greater: evade Thousands and thousands of shadow citizens,” concludes Labajos.
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