Stop cutting down the trees

I have been living in Dubai for more than 15 years, and have been travelling to Jebel Ali every day for work.

Once the Dubai Metro opened on September 9, 2009, I began using it to get to work. Travelling along Shaikh Zayed Road on a daily basis, I have seen many changes on both sides of the road. Once it was lined by a small number of buildings, but over the past 15 years many skyscrapers, shopping malls and advertisement boards have come up. I have also noticed that two very long advertisement boards have been fixed between the Mall of the Emirates and Sharaf DG Metro Stations and that in front of them there are a lot of trees.

I wondered how the trees remained there, because in order for the public to view the board, at least 200 trees would need to be cut down. Sure enough, I was recently shocked to see these trees being rapidly removed.

On the one hand, we celebrate World Environment Day every year and have campaigns for a greener Dubai, but on the other hand, we are encouraging the cutting down of all these trees.

I agree that advertisements are important, but trees are more important. Already, half of the trees have been removed till now.

I request the authorities to stop cutting the trees immediately. There are a lot of spaces along Shaikh Zayed Road where these boards can be installed, so please let the trees grow in their current location.

- The reader is a security supervisor based in Dubai.