A huge blue crane placed the traditional Christmas tree in the center of St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican on Thursday before the eyes of some curious people. But he did so two days late: the Christmas tree was to arrive on Tuesday, and it should not be the fir that finally shines next to the obelisk in the majestic square, but a hundred-year-old white fir that has been the subject of an environmental battle.
The case that has almost left the Vatican without its Christmas tree has as its protagonist the impressive 30-meter, 200-year-old white fir that was going to be given to Pope Francis by a town of just 182 inhabitants, Rosello, in the region of the Italian Abruzzo. It was located in the forest of Monte Castel Barone, and had been chosen by the municipality of Rosello when in 2020 the mayor offered to deliver one of his precious white fir trees to the Holy See for its Christmas decorations.
The announcement shocked a judge from the nearby town of Pescara, Dario Rapino, who quickly realized that there were no white fir trees in the area the authorities were talking about, and that these were only in the border region of Molise, in a protected reserve of hundred-year-old trees that cannot be felled. “Already at the time of the triumphant announcement I wrote a letter to Pope Francis asking him to save it – he told Il Fatto Quotidiano – but I never received a reply. I knew that the only white firs in Rosello are the ones in the reserve and cannot be cut down”. His letter evoked the papal encyclical Laudato si, on the environment, and explained that a tree should remain on its land for all the functions it performed for the ecosystem. The environmental organization World Wildlife Fund (WWF) was also against the logging, which defended the great value of this fir tree and called for more transparency about these processes in the future.
Rapino got down to business and began his fight. The first step was to find the white fir that the Rosello City Council had chosen for the Vatican. It was easy for him, because it had been fenced off and the lowest branches had been cut to facilitate felling. So, calculating the exact coordinates of the tree’s position, he was able to prove that he was in the province of Isernia, in Molise, which does not allow the felling of these trees, and reported it to the forestry police. What’s more: the spectacular fir was exactly in an area intended to maintain or restore the natural habitats of the species that inhabit it. In order for it to be cut down, a previous environmental impact study was needed, which can last up to a month, which was not done. The irregularities, therefore, were several.
Their battle was unsuccessful until Monday, the day that what the local Italian media have dubbed the alberocide was to be perpetrated. The day before, the judge had warned the police in the Molise region that they were about to cut down one of the trees in the Monte Castel Barone reserve, and on Monday he decided to stand in front of the white fir waiting for the managers to arrive. logging, but found no one. Finally, when he was returning, they called him: the police had stopped the operation.
“Having saved such an important tree is a reason for great happiness, although I am a bit obfuscated by the repetition of a tribal tradition that sooner or later will need to end,” the magistrate and environmentalist celebrated on his Facebook page.
In the end, and so that the Vatican would not be left without its tree, the Rosello City Council decided that instead of the white fir it would donate to San Pedro another 62-year-old fir from a nursery dedicated to the production of wood, and not a tree protected. They have also sent another 42 smaller copies, which will be placed in the Vatican offices. Now all that remains is for them to be decorated so that everything is ready for the inauguration ceremony and the lighting of the lights, which will take place on December 3, when a nativity scene completely made of wood from northern Italy will also be unveiled, with carved cedar statues. by hand from planned fellings, so no trees were cut down to create it.
“It will be a happy Christmas, after all,” Colonel Ginaluca Grossi, of the area’s forestry police, told Reuters.
