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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.
