Hundreds of thousands of new trees are to be planted in Berlin in the coming years. (archive picture)
© dpa
Berlin is to become greener and get hundreds of thousands of additional trees over the next 15 years.
The coalition parties CDU and SPD agreed on a corresponding draft law with representatives of the citizens' initiative "BaumEntscheid".
The draft is closely based on a proposal by the initiative. It is to be finally adopted in a special session of the House of Representatives on November 3. The citizens' initiative and the government factions have managed to join forces, it was reported in the afternoon. The agreement on a tree law would make Berlin more liveable and better prepare the city for heat, drought and climate change. The co-initiator of the citizens' initiative, Heinrich Strößenreuther, spoke of a great success for civic engagement.
The planned tree program is expected to cost around 3 billion euros spread over 15 years. The cost estimate was initially described as a "mathematical figure". According to the government factions, one idea is to also use money from the special fund provided by the federal government. A scientific advisory board - also known as the Control Council - is to regularly draw up reports on the implementation of the Tree Law, among other things.