Bhopal Notes :: 68 :: Felling of roadside trees

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A tree-lined street of Nanking, China

A recent report in a local newspaper said that the local administration is all set to cut down about 3000 trees for widening of two roads. The proposal is to create two roads of six lanes each one of which would be a link for the smart city that is coming up in a part of the town.

Some substantial time has elapsed since the report appeared in the vernacular press but there seems to be no sign of any people’s resistance to the decision. In Delhi people got together a couple of years ago and protested when the administration was going to chop around 14000 trees for redevelopment of some South Delhi colonies. The government eventually had to back off. Bhopal too has a history of such protests. In order to maintain the green ambiance. People came out on the streets and protested against the decision to create a smart city in Shivaji Nagar which is blessed with a tremendous amount of greenery. The government saw the protesters’ point and moved the smart city away from Shivaji Nagar.

 This time, however, there is no movement from people’s side although Bhopal has lost enormous number of trees in recent times. At one time it had 60-odd percent of its area covered by trees. The same has now come down to around 11% and is likely to plummet to a measly 4% in the next few years. How that is going to impact the city’s micro-climate can only be imagined in the context of rising global temperatures. Last summer was one of the hottest and, devoid of ample greenery, the city is likely to become a furnace.

The city planners do not seem to ever consider factoring in of the climatic impact that their proposals would have. In the name of smart city already a few hundred trees have been sacrificed. A few more are likely to be sacrificed as the project jogs along.

 The Smart City Administration is in the process of creating what are reported as “boulevard streets”. The Oxford and Cambridge dictionaries define a boulevard as a wide street in a city usually lined with trees. Thus, firstly, the word “street” is redundant when used with the word boulevard because bouleward means a street that is wider than other urban streets. The second requirement is that these are usually lined with trees. A recent, presumably, aerial photograph that appeared in one of the newspapers of a boulevard in the city showed absolute absence of trees while the streets that were not boulevards were green. Obviously the Smart City organization has not thought of planting trees on both sides of the proposed boulevards. Even if they do not consider it mandatory they should plant trees on these roads that are likely to be important for the city. Such a step would be aesthetically sound and environmentally useful

Somehow the civic authorities have become indifferent to roadside trees. While building the now generally-condemned BRTS corridor thousands of trees were felled and a very few old ones were translocated. The latter, however, did not survive for want of expertise or care or both. I recall once the then Municipal Commissioner made an astounding statement in this regard. He said compensatory plantation for trees felled on the roadsides had been done on a hill outside the city. I recall having visited the site along with Late Shri Arun Pandya and some other members of the Bhopal Citizens’ Forum. That the compensatory plantation so far away from the city roads where the trees were axed was no compensation at all never ever seemed to have occurred to the municipal authorities.

Besides, as Pradeep Krishen, a well known naturalist who has written a book on the trees of Delhi, says compensatory afforestation is a fraud played on people. He said the process is gone through in a “naam ke vaste” manner. According to him, “People including the forest department are just evading it. Officials do not go and check on the plantation and they do not bother to educate themselves either. Characteristics of forests change all the time which means it is important for forest officials to visit plantations regularly but in India the Forest Department does not know what its role is”.

That may be so but the fact is that for urban people trees are more beneficial on the roadside than in far-away plantations. There are distinctive benefits of roadside trees like:

Trees capture dust particles; trees reduce greenhouse effect, roadside trees hinder noise pollution; they promote biodiversity, they prevent surface run-off and foster urban bird life. The roadside trees can also act as wind-break and prevent erosion.

 These are a few obvious benefits apart from those that make urban life pleasant and aesthetic. That they also act as shelter from sun and rain need hardly be mentioned.

It is said that the erstwhile rulers always used to plan roads and trees along them together. This is apparent from what one sees in New Delhi. The Britishers meticulously chose trees to be planted along the various roads of Lutyen’s Delhi and that is precisely why today’s central Delhi is so green. Things are quite different in the colonies that came up later.      

I, for one, feel that there should be concerted opposition to felling of trees on the roadsides and there should be general demand for planting trees along all the roads for the benefits of this much-ravaged town.