Opinion Piece: Rationally Viewing the Political Rift Caused by Trees and People

Although my time working in a public agency lasted only a few months, I had the opportunity to observe the complex entanglement between trees and people. Frontline units responsible for tree-related issues typically allocate their budgets only after ensuring sufficient funding for vulnerable populations—such as the elderly, disabled, impoverished, or isolated. In areas where even elderly care is inadequately supported, frontline staff hesitate to draw attention to issues concerning a single tree. Moreover, tree transplantation is extremely costly. To carefully remove a diseased tree without causing it to die during the process, the procedure can take over a week—or even several months. Challenges during this process include shortages of arborists, securing cranes and laborers from contractors, finding suitable transplant sites, and navigating administrative reviews. If costs rise further, public bidding becomes necessary, making it even more uncertain when one or multiple diseased or dangerously leaning trees can actually be removed. Therefore, when civil servants receive public complaints about potentially falling trees in parks or along roads, given limited budgets and time, tree removal often becomes the immediate compromise solution to reduce the risk of public safety incidents. Otherwise, if a tree falls and injures someone, citizens may file claims for state compensation, forcing the responsible civil servant to hire lawyers and attend court proceedings. I do not know whether my predecessor’s predecessor resigned due to the psychological toll of enduring legal proceedings from such state compensation cases, but it is not impossible. Using difficult-to-execute cases as political questioning topics certainly attracts media attention and public interest, and such conflicts are highly effective for election campaigns. I do not deny the importance of elections—they are necessary and hold a rightful place in our democratic values. However, after multiple rotations of frontline civil servants whose names we can no longer trace, we have become unable to fully count the political rifts that such political activities have inflicted upon our nation. *The author is a frontline contract worker at a local government agency.