After 51 old trees in front of the Saigon Opera House were felled back in July, 84 mahogany trees on Tôn Đức Thắng Street are encountering a similar fate. Refusing to stay silent about what they perceive as thoughtless destruction of an important resource, a group of young Saigonese called “Happy Tree In Saigon” has taken action on the street and online.

Happy Tree In Saigon has started a petition via their website, asking for people to show their support for saving the city’s old trees with signatures. Also, to make a visual impact, a 150m banner was held up by group members at the intersection Tôn Đức Thắng and Lê Duẩn Streets on November 16.

The signatures will be submitted to city authorities to express concerns that there is already a deficit of large trees in Saigon (according to the group, there are only 5,000 such trees in the city of over 8 million) and that many of those that do exist are being chopped down in the name of urban transit projects which lack proper environmental consideration of the verdant vestiges.

They know that it might be too late to reverse the fate of the trees on Tôn Đức Thắng Street, but the group hopes that actions taken now will result in more dialogue and deliberation for similar issues in the future.

Online petitions seem to have become the tool of choice for those seeking to call attention to plans which threaten Vietnam’s natural and architectural heritage. Similar efforts have been made to preserve elements of Saigon’s Tax Center and stop the construction of a cable car in Son Doong Cave.