Texas Museum Attacked for Car Park Plans

There is more than an echo of Joni Mitchell in a row that has engulfed a natural history museum in Texas. In Big Yellow Taxi, almost four decades ago, she sang of her fears for the environment: they "paved paradise to put up a parking lot" and they "took all the trees, put 'em in a tree museum".

The Witte museum in San Antonio is not planning to take the surrounding trees and put them in the museum. But it is planning to take them and replace them with a parking lot.

Larry DeMartino, a landscape architect who is leading a campaign against their removal, said today it was ironic that a natural history museum should be doing this. "It is a joke. It is sad. We are losing sight of our parks tradition."

He added: "It is ironic that nearly 90,000 schoolchildren a year visit the museum. What lessons are we teaching our children?"

The museum is located in the publicly-owned Brackenridge Park, which has 300 acres of trees, many of them dating back to before Spanish settlers arrived in the 16th century.

The museum at present has parking for 75 cars and the proposal is for a $4m (£2m) car park with 340 vehicles. About four acres of woodland will be affected.

Marise McDermott, president of the museum, said uprooted trees on three of the four acres will be replanted elsewhere. "As a natural history museum, it is important to be sensitive."

She said that the museum was located on the edge of the parkland and the interior would not be affected.

She said the museum had a good environmental record: "We have done a lot of natural riverside parking ... er ... planting."