Expressway Gives Way to Ancient TreeA group of expressway builders recently re-drew the route of a planned expressway in an effort to save a 400-year-old gingko tree.The gingko tree is located in Lishui county in east China's Jiangsu Province. "The gingko tree was found obstructing the expressway designed to connect Nanjing and Hangzhou, capitals of Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces, which will cut the seven-hour-trip between the two cities to 2.5 hours," said an engineer working with the expressway project. "Experts suggested redesigning the route because the tree might die if it is removed, some local farmers also rendered that they would rather support the new route, which would demand them to pull down some of their houses, than sacrifice the tree," he said. "Finally, we took the advice and decided to change the route." This is not the only tree-protecting story in China. In Yangzhou of Jiangsu Province, an old tree and a small traditional tower are still standing in the middle of a major road in the downtown area. In Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu, two parterres were built surrounding two ancient trees on a road near the Nanjing airport. "Trees used to give way to the constructions, now we are very happy to do the reverse thing," said an official with the Nanjing Bureau of Parks and Woods. |
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