Quercus macranthera, commonly known as the Caucasian oak, is among the trees facing extinction around the area. Very few of these trees remain on the mountain.
Last fall, Rudaw broadcast a programme highlighting the existential threats the trees face, prompting the Kurdistan Botanical Foundation (KBF) to begin protecting them.
“There are some specific duties we have to do and the first thing is to isolate certain trees so we can save the seeds, we will also put warning signs on the trees to tell the local people that this species is rare,” Saman Abdulrahman, Director of Kurdistan Botanical Foundation, told Rudaw’s Andam Jabbar on Tuesday.
There are five species of oak trees in the region, which account for 90 percent of the forests.
Along with the fence, warning signs were hung on the trees while the government is also taking responsibility for protecting them from being cut down.
“We will fully monitor and protect the trees, especially through the environmental police, and from today onwards we will have numerous teams to protect the trees because these are national assets that must be protected,” Sidakan's mayor Ihsan Chalabi said.
In addition to climate change, man-made threats are another factor endangering these trees. Locals and officials in many other parts of the Kurdistan Region, including Erbil province, have warned that the cutting down of trees, mainly old oak trees, is becoming a dangerous phenomenon, especially in the mountainous regions.
Green spaces in the Kurdistan Region are also severely damaged due to sporadic armed clashes and aerial bombardments of Turkey.
