CAIRO: A month-long campaign by the Cairo Cleaning and Beautification Agency (CCBA) in Heliopolis resulted in cutting dozens of trees depriving pedestrians of the cooling shade. However, local officials say that the slaughter is only to protect the Ficus trees that make up the majority of trees in Heliopolis. "It's a remedy. These 60 year old trees are eroded by Aphids which turn the leaves yellow. Sprays didn't help much so we decided to destroy the infected parts of the plant to prevent spreading", said Doaa Mohamed of CCBA. Cairo Governor's Deputy, Mohamed Mokhtar El-Hamalawy, directly supervises the Ficus remedy campaign. "If we don't cut the infected parts, it will spread to the whole tree. We will then have to plant new trees that take up to 15 years to grow," said Mohamed Abdel Azeem, CCBA Cleaning Head for the Eastern Region. CCBA workers whose mission is cutting the trees told DNE that the infection of trees on Abo Bakr El-Siddiq Street namely became apparent a few years ago but former Cairo governor, Abdel Azeem Wazir, didn't want to take action. "We hardly did any trimming over the past years until the infection became so severe. It won't take long for the new leaves to grow healthy especially in this high temperature," they said. The lack of trimming was also echoed by Nefeesa Mohamed, chairman of Central Administration for Beautification. She said it's the reason for this severe infection Ficus trees suffer from now. "Trimming was not allowed because people don't understand our job. They see us trimming the trees and think we're destroying nature without knowing that it's done for beautification and remedy," she said. The soil itself around the infected trees was affected and no grass could be seen. The workers complained of how people react to them when seeing the cutting. "They see us cutting the trees but don't know that it's for good", they added.
