MARCH 12, China's official Arbor Day, always passes with much fanfare.

This is a rare moment when the entire country, from its leaders on down, engages in a high-profile tree-planting campaign to raise awareness and enlist public support in the battle against desertification that has been devouring northern China for years.

But these symbolic good deeds and occasional endeavors of tree-huggers have been overshadowed this year by events in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province.

Since early this month, 49 plane trees lining some of the city's major boulevards have been stealthily removed to make way for metro projects. The public was not notified in advance.

Officials say the enormous trees, some 60 years old, will be transplanted elsewhere and carefully tended.

The same urban planners' ax has felled plane trees elsewhere, but nowhere is the public backlash more ferocious than in Nanjing, where residents are strongly attached to the very old and stately shade trees and opposed any attempt to remove them.

Nanjing's plane trees have witnessed the city's vicissitudes over the last century. Introduced by a French missionary in 1872, their numbers grew exponentially during the 1920s as urban planners then vigorously turned the ancient capital of 10 dynasties into an oasis of green amid an arid neighborhood.

The biggest legacy of the greenery expansion is a symbiotic relationship between Nanjingers and their beloved plane trees. They have the luxury of "sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree long ago," as the Chinese saying goes.

As one of the four "furnaces" of China (the others are Chongqing, Wuhan and Nanchang), Nanjing is surrounded on three sides by mountains, which trap the heat and prevent winds from blowing in. The immense and lush green canopy offered by the trees affords respite from the scorching sun for locals in summer.

So when this green refuge was lost, its beneficiaries fumed.

Lost refuge

In the dreary afternoon of March 16, crowds gathered along Taiping Road N., a thoroughfare planned as the metro construction site in downtown Nanjing. Along the avenue lay the plane trees, their boughs bearing spring leaves sawn off for easy transport.

The desecration moved some to tears.

People flocked to the street after receiving word by microblog that the trees were being removed. They stood in silence to mourn the passing of what they affectionately called their "leafed citizens."

Some people tied green ribbons around the gnarled trunks as a farewell gesture. The ribbons were quickly unfastened by police and disposed of.

But on March 19, a bigger crowd of protesters, around 1,000 and most wearing green ribbons, turned out to demonstrate that they cannot be cowed into silence.

Surveys conducted by Nanjing-based Web portals found more than 90 percent of the respondents opposed the tree removal, despite the convenience that a new subway line will eventually bring.

This isn't a difficult trade-off for those who believe that plane trees, not a metro, are what make Nanjing Nanjing.

Trees brighten streets and delight nature-starved urbanites. Yet saving these living urban amenities doesn't have much traction with decision makers today. The imperative for more showy "calling cards" of modernity carries the day.

Nanjing's plane trees are not just a natural oxygen bar but a link to a shared past.

Sanlian Life Weekly magazine reported on March 25 that Nanjing residents vividly remember the day when the towering plane tree in front of the iconic Jinling Hotel was removed as required by a metro project.

Hotel staff watched as the tree was loaded onto a huge truck, as though they were seeing off an old friend.

In an era when Chinese cities are increasingly pockmarked with similar and sometimes ugly landmarks devoid of history, it is these melancholy moments that make us reflect on what makes a city distinctive, charming and livable - and showy "calling cards" are not on the list.

Fortunately, the silent protests of tree lovers - a powerful statement since trees cannot speak for themselves - and a tide of online protest have led city authorities to halt the planned removal of 900 trees and promise to tend to those already replanted elsewhere.

The city government announced on March 17 that in the future old shade trees should in principle be given precedence over infrastructure projects.

Existential threat

The fact that mature trees with deep and extensive root systems are difficult to transplant makes one skeptical about officials' sincerity.

Past cases of their perfidy intensify the skepticism.

Eighty-three plane trees were transplanted to a Nanjing suburb in 2006 as part of the metro construction. Officials promised a survival rate of 80 percent but later it was revealed that 68 trees, more than 80 percent, had died from neglect.

Before the latest threat to their existence, Nanjing's plane trees had long been in danger of decimation. Their numbers dropped sharply - some say they were almost halved - on the watch of ex-Party chief Wang Wulong, who was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve in 2008 for taking bribes.

Wang gained notoriety less as a corrupt official than as a "lumberjack chief." He despised the thick foliage of the plane trees for "blocking the neon lights and holding Nanjing back as a metropolis."

Of course, overwhelming calls for the plane trees to stay won't end the arguments over their destiny.

While the official willingness to suspend the tree removal and seek public input has been hailed by many as a triumph of the popular will, some metro advocates criticized the official concession as "short-sighted" and "spineless."

Though far outnumbered, they argue that official deference to public whims favoring greenery will cost posterity their opportunity for development.

A large slice of urban China is gripped by a "metro frenzy." The headlong rush to hollow out and tap underground space to ease road traffic has potentially deadly consequences.

Coupled with the weight of skyscrapers, cities' land surface is prone to subsidence.

While the worst-case scenario of a severe ground cave-in is remote, reckless urban development is endangering what little greenery we have left - the crucial stabilizer of soil.

Not far from my office, on Maoming Road N. and Shimen Road, which are a stone's throw from bustling Nanjing Road W., a tract of such greenery was recently axed for development space.

Gone for 'good'?

To make room for Metro lines 12 and 13, 151 plane trees were uprooted for transplantation in quick succession last week.

Only a few roots stick out from hastily poured cement where the stumps were.

Historian Jill Jonnes wrote in the winter 2011 issue of Wilson Quarterly, "Most of us take trees for granted, but when we do think of them, generally we appreciate how they beautify and soften our world and connect us to nature."

We are aware of how vital trees are only when they disappear from sight.

To allay public concerns that the Shanghai plane trees will end up dead like many Nanjing trees, the Municipal Greenery and Public Sanitation Bureau said they would be welcomed back into their home soil when construction of the new metro lines is completed in 2013.

In the interim, the bureau says it will ensure the survival of 95 percent of them.

That sounds ominously ambitious. I have a more modest hope: in two years, when we miss "the trees of yesteryear," we won't inquire in vain as to their whereabouts.