by InTrieste
Italy’s National Trees Day, established by a 2013 law promoting the development of urban green spaces, was observed on Thursday with a series of initiatives across Trieste aimed at highlighting the environmental and cultural value of the city’s arboreal heritage.
For the municipality’s Department of Territorial Policies, the annual celebration offers an opportunity to reaffirm the role trees play in urban life and the administration’s commitment to protecting and expanding local green areas. Officials emphasized that trees provide not only environmental benefits — from improving air quality to mitigating pollution — but also serve as living records of the city’s history and its changing landscape.
Some of Trieste’s trees, city officials noted, have witnessed major historical events; others are tied to local lore or to transformations in the surrounding territory. Each tree, they said, reflects a long, intertwined relationship between people and the natural environment.
As in previous years, the city prepared a broad program of activities for residents, community groups and schools, ranging from early childhood institutions to secondary schools. The aim is to raise awareness of the importance of trees in urban settings and the contribution green spaces make to public well-being and the livability of shared spaces.
Since 2016, Trieste’s municipal government has invited each of the city’s seven administrative districts to identify two locations for new trees to be planted in honor of National Trees Day. This year’s plantings will again be dedicated symbolically to infants born in 2025 in each district — a gesture intended to underscore the city’s focus on future generations and its efforts to build a more sustainable urban environment.
The new trees will be installed in public parks, gardens and the grounds of municipal preschools, where children spend much of their day. City officials say that helping the youngest residents understand the value of nature is an investment in both the present and the future.
Throughout the year, the municipality offers a wide range of free educational programs for schools, available through the city’s online civic network. For this edition of National Trees Day, the city also organized a training session in collaboration with the University of Trieste for students enrolled in the master’s program in Ecology and Sustainability of Global Change. The workshop focused on the effects of urban stressors on trees and on the challenges of managing green infrastructure in densely built environments.
Sites of the 2025 Plantings
- First District: Santa Croce Preschool, civic number 442 — two manna ashes (Fraxinus ornus)
- Second District: Lona Opicina School, Via San Mauro — two walnut trees (Juglans regia)
- Third District: Villa Prinz, Strada del Friuli — two large-leaved limes (Tilia platyphyllos)
- Fourth District: Piazza Carlo Alberto Garden — two Japanese pagoda trees (Sophora japonica ‘Pendula’)
- Fifth District: Via Montecchi Garden — two large-leaved limes (Tilia platyphyllos)
- Sixth District: Piazzale Gioberti — one London plane (Platanus × acerifolia) and one Mediterranean cypress (Cupressus sempervirens Stricta)
- Seventh District: San Giusto School, Via Visinada — two Lombardy poplars (Populus nigra var. Italica)
Additional trees will be planted at two other sites: a manna ash at the Forlanini/Marchesetti roundabout and a walnut tree at the Toti recreation center near the cathedral square.
