ARBOLMID the new app that allows us to learn about the high value of Mérida trees

Merida Mayor Renan Barrera Concha said that the new app ARBOLMID that was officially launched on January 26th, is one of the results of an agreement with a German government agency, and it combines creativity and technology, but also responsibility and solidarity for the care of the environment.

In his speech, Andrés Rojo Maurer, advisor to the German Cooperation for Sustainable Development (GIZ) in Mérida, recognized the mayor’s interest in seeking more and better tools that contribute to sustainable development.

He stressed that Mérida has had a very important advance in its tree-planting processes, with the census of trees in parks.

The Mayor stated that the collaboration with the German agency seeks to strengthen the processes that the city already has very advanced, in order to continue being the spearhead in the country in this process of arborization and digitization of data.

He stressed that the development of the app was an entirely local process, with the Sustainable Development Unit and the civil association FabCity Yucatán, for which he recognized the City Council for this effort.

In his message, Barrera Concha stressed that this is part of many actions undertaken, including the preparation of an inventory of trees in the city, with which today it is known that Mérida has 2,318,000 trees, which represents an average of 96 per hectare and allows an oxygen production of 32,890 tons per year.

“With this application, we can know what kind of species there are and obtain additional data that allow us to be better informed from our cell phones, in addition to the possibility of participating in fun dynamics to involve children and young people in environmental care,” he said.

The new application, which was developed with the support of GIZ and FabCity Yucatán, allows you to consult and learn about the characteristics of the urban trees of Mérida and even learn to identify the tree species that you can find in the city, as well as their importance for the sustainability.

The director of the Sustainable Development Unit, Eugenia Correa Arce, explained that the application can be downloaded for free for phones with Android operating system from the Google Play Store. 

Among other things, it has a library of 100 most common species in Mérida, species identification, the shape of leaves and trunk, average height, size of roots, services that they provide to the ecosystem, and photographs that help to recognize each species. It also includes a woodland map, with the trees identified during the previous exercise with the I-Tree program.

As part of the presentation, Barrera Concha made a tour of the Cholul park’s botanical garden (Arborétum), during which the director of the Sustainable Development Unit, Eugenia Correa Arce, explained the benefits of the new app.

Also present at the presentation of the digital tool were Ileana Cerón Palma, president of the FabCity Yucatán foundation, Aracely Negrete co-spokesperson of the Arborétum / Soy 1 + Cholul group, as well as Cholul curator Sergio Jesús Ix Matú.