Mass Tree Pruning Near Schools

In early November, the Department of Landscaping announced plans for mass sanitary pruning of trees. Parents and citizens often interpret such news as a measure to ensure child safety. However, specialists see this term covering a practice that creates a delayed threat. Usually, "sanitary pruning" in our city implies severe crown reduction and topping—removing the entire canopy down to a bare trunk. This approach in schools is misguided and harmful: it does not increase safety, but rather decreases it, and here is why.

First and foremost: a confusion of terms. According to arboriculture standards, sanitary pruning is the removal of dry, broken, or diseased branches, or those that pose an immediate threat. Removing healthy structural branches solely to reduce the tree's size is not a sanitary measure.

Cutting a living crown inflicts severe trauma on the tree. To survive, the tree spends its last reserves on the rapid growth of water sprouts. This is the main safety trap: unlike natural branches, these shoots have weak surface attachment to the trunk. Within 3–5 years, they grow into heavy whips that break and fall even in light winds. By trying to avoid falling branches today through cheap topping, the administration guarantees an emergency situation in the future. A competent alternative is structural pruning, which reduces the canopy's weight and wind load without maiming the tree, but this requires skill, not just a chainsaw.

The second popular argument is the need to increase natural light in classrooms. There is a mistake in prioritization here. Even if some ground-floor classrooms lack light, Armenia remains a country with excess heat and harsh UV radiation.

The economics of the issue work against cutting. If a classroom is dark, modern LED lights solve the problem effectively—this is a one-time, negligible cost. However, if a classroom becomes unbearably hot due to the destruction of shade, the school has to buy and operate air conditioners. This costs the budget hundreds of times more and requires constant electricity expenditures. It is important to remember that deciduous trees (which make up the bulk of Yerevan's stock) provide shade precisely during the hot months, while in winter, when light is scarce, they stand leafless and do not block sunlight. By destroying a tree, the school trades cheap light for expensive cold. The miser pays twice: first for the barbaric pruning, and a few years later for the removal of the dead tree and the planting of a sapling that won't provide shade for the next 15 years.

The third aspect concerns the health and education of children. School principals often initiate pruning due to minor inconveniences: falling leaves and insects flying into windows.

Such logic is alarming for two reasons. First, a natural shield is destroyed. A dense tree crown is a powerful biofilter that traps tons of urban dust, soot, and exhaust fumes from roads, keeping them out of classroom windows. When the administration orders a tree to be turned into a pole because of bugs (a problem solvable with mosquito nets), they deprive children of lung protection.

Second, the educational process suffers. When children see a healthy tree being mutilated because of falling leaves, they receive an unspoken but powerful lesson: nature is a burden and trash. Students learn that comfort is achieved by destroying anything that causes the slightest inconvenience. Instead of skills in coexistence and care, the school instills a consumerist and dismissive view of the environment from an early age.

The schoolyard should be a safe green oasis, not a testing ground for hazardous stumps. Preserving mature trees through competent care, rather than destruction, is a requirement of common sense, long-term safety, and budget savings.