arborcide

[Benjamin Zimmer]

>From today's New York edition of "Metro"...

-----
http://ny.metro.us/metro/local/
City park renovations increasingly involve the cutting down of trees,
observed Geoffrey Croft of NYC Park Advocates. "When [former Parks
commissioner] Henry Stern was in office, you couldn't touch a tree —
he created a term called arborcide," said Croft. "Now it's open
season. They want to cut down trees in Union Square Park too — and
it's totally unnecessary."
-----

OED has "arboricide" (' the wanton destruction of trees') from 1899
but no "arborcide". There are Stern-related cites in the New York
Times back to 1987, but here's a much earlier one in a sarcastic
article about Los Angeles city officials cutting down shade trees:

-----
Los Angeles Times, Jun 28, 1904, p. 11/6 [HNP Doc ID 321677002]
Another prominent citizen..thinks the way out of it is to have a day
set apart every year for the purpose, a sort of Arborcide Day. "Yes,"
he said. "Let us have a merry and impressive celebration every year.
We will call it 'Cord Wood Anniversary.'"
-----

--Ben Zimmer

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org