Old Poplar at Liceo Maffei to be Cut Down After Storm Damage

During the night on Monday, battered by thunderstorms and fierce winds, the last poplar tree still standing in the center of the northern courtyard of Liceo Maffei lost a branch. When they arrived on Monday morning at the usual time to reopen the school, they noticed that the area towards the gym was blocked by branches and leaves: high up, where the thick trunk divides into a forest of smaller branches, there was a sign of mutilation — a conspicuous tear in the wood.

An inspection and judgment followed: the tree, already old (someone recognizes a tender sprout in an old snapshot published in the school yearbook, taken at the time of the building’s construction, which then served as a hospital for the Austro-Hungarian troops stationed in Riva), must be cut down; its life cycle has ended, and leaving it there would only cause it to break apart piece by piece.

The first intervention with a chainsaw was carried out by the municipal gardening service, which pollarded the poplar as in spring, cutting all the branches and leaving only the central trunk, a poor stump with no future.

The cut at the base should be performed by the province, which owns the land and the tree. For now, the safety of passersby is ensured: a few now, but surely more in a few weeks, when the school year resumes.