A
group of people in San Francisco called the Guerrilla Grafters
surreptitiously graft fruit tree branches onto non-fruiting trees in
public spaces in the city -about 50 trees so far. Tom Levy of SFGate
spoke with two of the "undercover orchardists," Tara Hui and Miriam
Goldberg.
"The intention of doing guerrilla grafting
is not so much for the sake of challenging authority, but to set an
example - a working example - to counter the arguments," said Hui, a
Beijing-born urban gardener and gray water activist with a computer
science degree. "If we have a prototype, we can have a legitimate
rational discussion on the issue."
But challenge authority it
does. According to Mohammed Nuru, chief of San Francisco's Department of
Public Works, guerrilla grafting is vandalism. The department says that
no matter who plants or maintains a street tree, if it's on a sidewalk
or other right-of-way area under city jurisdiction, it's publicly owned.
City
officials say fruit trees are forbidden because fallen fruit could be a
safety hazard. So far, there have been no complaints and no arrests.
Story.
Website.
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