Urban trees as social triggers: The case of the Ginkgo biloba specimen in Tallinn, Estonia

Abstract

Urban trees are considered to be essential and integral to urban environments, to contribute to the biodiversity of cities as well as to the well-being of their inhabitants. In addition, urban trees may also serve as living memorials, helping to remember major social eruptions and to cement continuity with the past, but also as social disruptors that can induce clashes between different ideals of culture. In this paper, we focus on a specific case, a Ginkgo biloba specimen growing at Süda Street in the centre of Tallinn, in order to demonstrate how the shifts in the meaning attributed to a non-human organism can shape cultural memory and underlie social confrontations. Integrating an ecosemiotic approach to human-non-human interactions with Juri Lotman’s approach to cultural memory and cultural space, we point out how non-human organisms can delimit cultural space at different times and how the ideal of culture is shaped by different ways of incorporating or other species in the human cultural ideal or excluding them from it.

About the history of conflicts over urban forestry in Estonian towns

“…This approach is linked more or less to our previous research: Sander & Randrup (1998), Meikar (1998), , , Sander (2001aSander ( , 2001b, Meikar (2002), Sander & Meikar (2003), Sander et al (2005), Konijnendijk et al (2007), Sander & Meikar (2015), Magnus & Sander (2019).…”

Collection of Experiences: 25 Years’ Work on Seed Propagation of Allochthonous Woody Plants in Skopje and Their Possible Role in the Urban Landscape

“…(Attorre et al 2000, Schmitt-Harsh et al 2013, Irmak et al 2018, Frank et al 2019, Rita Baraldi et al 2019, Csontos et al 2020, Ribeiro et al 2020, Masalova et al 2021. Furthermore, trees also have a mnemonic and social role, and green infrastructure has the potential to give new life to the city after a catastrophic event, build solidarity and commemorate the past (Magnus and Sander 2019). All these aspects underline the sustainable and multifunctional role of the urban vegetation.…”

Introduction

“…Th ose days, the protests were clearly about more than protecting a tree, as the reason for cutting it-building plans for a new opera house-was considered to have been part of a Soviet propaganda campaign (see also Magnus and Sander 2019). Today, although most of the media attention concentrated on the specifi c events around the willow tree, its protection appears perhaps a little less political, and a little more environmental, as the protest resisted the relentless advance of car-driven developments in the country's capital.…”