Significant solitary trees and avenues of trees can be protected as memorial ones in the Czech Republic under the Nature and Landscape Protection Act (No. 114/1992 Coll.). Entire parks can then be declared cultural monuments. Individual trees, their groups and alleys are often an inseparable part of areas protected as monument reserves and monument zones under the State Monument Care Act (No. 20/1987 Coll.).
The protection of memorial trees includes the prohibition of their damaging and destroying or of disrupting their natural development. Individual interventions in a memorial tree (including its professional treatment) have to be assessed and approved by the relevant nature protection authority that declared the tree as a memorial one. The memorial trees have their own declaration document, they are registered in the Central List of Nature Conservation (maintained by the Nature and Landscape Conservation Agency of the Czech Republic) and they are marked with the national emblem. The aforementioned documentation provides more detailed information about the specimen, such as its approximate age, its trunk circumference at the height of 130 centimetres, information about its history (e. g. connections with significant historical or religious events). A protective zone in which harmful activities (such as excavations, ploughing, road salting, application of chemical preparations, etc.) are limited is defined around each memorial tree. This zone has the shape of a circle with a minimum radius of ten times the diameter of the tree trunk measured at the height of 130 centimetres above the ground.
In Hradec Králové, 29 trees have been declared as memorial ones so far; and the protection of 11 of them has been revoked because these trees were cut down after an expert assessment of their condition. These memorial trees are part of the city’s urban area, but they are also found on the banks and in the floodplain of the Labe and Orlice Rivers. The official declaration of trees as memorial ones their registration and treatment are ensured by the Hradec Králové Municipality. Any treatment, health pruning, interventions in their protection zone, or necessary cut-downs are subject to the assessment and decision of this authority.
1 – Field maple at Kavčím plácku
2 – Oak at the dead end of the Orlice River in the Malšovice suburb
3 – English Oak at the boatyard in the Malšovice suburb
4 – English Oak near the University Hospital
5 – European White Elm in the Elbe River´s floodplain
6 – Ginkgo near the high medical school
7 – Tuliptree at the Elbe River flow
8 – London Plane on the Eliška’s embankment
