As Cairo transforms, Egyptians fight to save their trees

In recent years, grassroots groups have sprung up in different areas of Cairo to try to protect the city’s urban identity. Asmar is a member of the Heliopolis Heritage Initiative, founded in 2011.

Sarah Rifaat lives a five-minute walk from Mesaha Square, a rare leafy spot in Giza, a neighborhood of high-rises. A few months ago, she was jolted into action by a video of a forklift leveling the square’s garden. She joined a WhatsApp group where residents expressed concern over the loss of green space. Residents organized a petition, but paving over of the garden continued.

“There’s a sense of collective connection to trees that I haven’t seen before,” she said.

Activists have scored some wins, including halting the commercial redevelopment of the Fish Garden, a park in the city’s central Zamalek area. Rifaat has seen some urban improvements initiated by city officials as well, but says there is no accountability among decision-makers.

Cairenes are struggling to come to terms with a rapidly changing city, where many public spaces have been taken away or commercialized, she said. Rifaat believes that protecting neighborhoods has become a final form of protest, as the space for civil society in Egypt keeps shrinking.

Backed up by residential groups across the city, environmental lawyer Ahmed Elseidi is leading a case before Egypt’s highest administrative court that he hopes will oblige the government to replant trees and protect Cairo’s few remaining green spaces.