When Egypt’s Public Prosecution launched an investigation into the destruction of trees along Cairo’s Gamaat al-Duwal al-Arabiyya Street, it opened up a much bigger question: How do thousands of trees vanish across Egyptian cities without high-level officials knowing about it?

The issue isn’t just about losing shade on a hot summer day. It is about a broken system in which local contractors cut down decades-old trees in broad daylight, bypassing environmental laws. Trees in Cairo aren’t just for decoration; they are part of an infrastructure of survival. Between 2017 and 2020, Cairo lost nearly 1 million square meters of green space. In most neighborhoods, there is less than half a square meter of green space per person, a tiny fraction of what health standards require.

When you cut down old trees in a dense city, temperatures shoot up, dust fills the air, and walkability disappears. The people who pay the price are daily commuters, street vendors, and residents enduring 40°C heat without areas of shade. Egypt has laws to protect the environment. As the host of COP27 and a signatory to international climate agreements, the country is officially committed to expanding green spaces and cutting emissions. Legally, major city projects are supposed to go through strict environmental impact assessments before work begins.

However, municipalities and contractors exploit an administrative trick to bypass such regulations. They reclassify tree cutting as routine “maintenance” or “road work.” By treating trees as minor obstacles rather than as natural assets, they sidestep environmental checks entirely. No public hearings, no environmental reviews, just a bulldozer and a crew moving quickly.

But why is nobody admitting fault? This happens because of three systemic problems: First, the Egyptian government has too many bosses and little accountability. Responsibility for streets is split among local councils, governorates, and transportation authorities, proving that when everyone is in charge, nobody is held responsible. Second, private contractors are hired to widen roads on tight deadlines. Therefore, leaving a 50-year-old tree in place requires clever engineering, time, and extra money, while cutting it down takes only a few minutes. Third, ⁠there is no legal protection for trees in Egypt. A historic building has such protection, but an 80-year-old tree does not, because the government and local workers treat trees like disposable street furniture.

However, there are ways to stop the destruction. The government should immediately stop the unnecessary cutting of trees and fix the system that allows trees to be cut down without clear oversight or accountability. The government should also centralize tree protection and put all urban trees under a single digital registry managed directly by the Ministry of Environment, as local councils shouldn’t have the power to approve tree removals on their own. Furthermore, the government has a responsibilty to punish rogue contractors and require published environmental assessments before any roadworks begin. If contractors cut down trees without a permit, the government should be responsible for fining and banning them from future government contracts. Finally, developers should be directed to respect nature in the design of their projects by forcing civil engineers to build roads around existing mature trees using central medians and curved lanes, instead of flattening everything first.

At the end of the day, this crisis is not really about trees. It is about what kind of cities Egypt wants to build and what kind of life it wants its people to have. A tree that has stood on a Cairo street for decades is not something that can simply be replaced by planting a few small trees somewhere else. Mature trees take a long time to grow, and during that period they provide shade, reduce heat, improve air quality, and make crowded streets more comfortable for the people who live and work there.

For many Egyptians, especially those who walk to work, wait for public transportation, sell goods on the street, or spend most of their day outdoors, these trees are not a luxury. They are part of their everyday life. Removing them makes already difficult environmental conditions even more so. A wider road may make traffic move faster, but if it leaves people walking under the burning sun with nowhere to escape the heat, then ordinary citizens are paying the cost of such projects.

This is why the investigation into the destruction of trees should not end with identifying one contractor or one official to blame. If different authorities can shift responsibility from one office to another, and if contractors can remove trees without clear public oversight, then the same problem can occur again, even after each specific case is closed. Egypt does not need to choose between modern roads and green cities. Good urban planning should make room for both. Roads can be redesigned, projects can be adjusted, and trees can be protected when authorities make them a priority from the beginning.

The real test of this crisis will be what happens next. If an investigation into the cutting down of trees leads to stricter rules, clearer responsibility, public transparency, and real protection for mature trees, then something positive can come out of what has happened. But if the trees disappear and the investigation eventually becomes another forgotten story, Egypt’s cities will continue losing something valuable that takes generations to replace.

Progress should not mean making cities hotter, dustier, and harder to live in. And it is definetely not about building skyscrapers at the expense of green spaces. A modern Egypt should be able to build for the future without destroying the natural spaces that make its cities livable today.

AI was used for clarity of grammar, shortening long paragraphs, and translating content originally written in Arabic.