latest re anne frank's tree

the bbc reports that a deal has been made that will absolutely definitely save the tree that anne frank wrote about in her diary:

"Dutch officials and conservationists have reached a deal to save the tree that brought comfort to Anne Frank as she hid from the Nazis. The 150-year-old horse chestnut will be supported by a frame before the summer. The Support Anne Frank Tree Foundation won a court injunction in November stopping the city of Amsterdam from cutting down the diseased tree. Officials feared it could topple over and crash into the Anne Frank Museum, which gets a million visitors a year. The city of Amsterdam, the museum, the tree's owner, the Netherlands' Trees Institute and the Support Anne Frank Tree Foundation agreed on the plan, which was worked out by a team of experts from several countries. An Amsterdam judge granted the tree a temporary reprieve last year, after the city council ordered it to be chopped down. Neighbours and supporters argued that, as a symbol of freedom, the tree was worth making extraordinary efforts to preserve. Even for posterity, grafts have been taken from the chestnut and are being raised in a nursery to replace the old tree if it turns out it cannot be saved again in 15 years' time."

anne frank's tree gets a reprieve

as previously reported in your-ears-should-hear, the horse chestnut tree that anne frank described in her diary was condemned by the amsterdam city council last year.

today, the bbc reports that the city council has given those who wish to save the tree until january to come up with a plan:

"The attic window from which Anne Frank could see the tree was the only one that had not been blacked out. In an entry dated February 23, 1944, she wrote: "From my favourite spot on the floor I look up at the blue sky and the bare chestnut tree, on whose branches little raindrops shine, appearing like silver, and at the seagulls and other birds as they glide on the wind ... As long as this exists, I thought, and I may live to see it, this sunshine, the cloudless skies, while this lasts I cannot be unhappy."

Ton Boon of the Amsterdam Centrum borough told Agence France-Presse news agency there was "only one Anne Frank tree" and it had been agreed to allow time for a possible rescue plan. Experts say the 27-tonne tree is too diseased from fungi to be saved and the owner wants it cut down as he would be liable for any damage caused should it fall. A Utrecht-based firm, Trees Institute, has suggested a salvage plan involving treatment and support for the trunk and limbs. Spokesman Edwin Koot told Associated Press: "The tree represented freedom... to Anne Frank. We must go the extra mile to try to save it." "