Trees

Over 56% of the city's transplanted trees in Mumbai failed to survive their shifting, revealed a Bombay High Court-appointed fact finding committee, entrusted to determine the status of such trees. The court-appointed committee inspected about 1483 fully grown trees transplanted since 2017, of which 824 trees were found to be either dead or on the verge of dying. The report presented in court found inadequate tree care and lack of scientific transplanting methods to be the root cause of the problem.  "The proportion of dead trees keeps on rising. In January 2018, 478 trees (42%) were found dead. The number rose…

Rapid urbanisation in India has claimed one major casualty – destruction of existing green cover in cities to make way for development and other projects. But with the growing realisation that a good quality of life means not just conserving, but also adding to the city’s green cover, and citizens pushing for the same, urban authorities in Ahmedabad, as in some other cities, are experimenting with ways of creating small green areas in an ever-expanding concrete urban landscape. One method, much touted of late, is that of Miyawaki forests. Developed by Japanese botanist and plant ecologist Akira Miyawaki, and named…

The Bombay High Court (HC) has become the last recourse for citizens to save Mumbai's miniscule tree cover -- less than a tree per head as aganst the world standard of seven trees per head. The city's few remaining trees are facing the axe from large, high-profile infrastructural projects. The High Court is playing the role meant to be played by the Mumbai's Tree Authority, a statutory body set up following promulgation of the Maharashtra (Urban Areas) Protection and Preservation of Trees Act, 1975. From getting the Tree Authority suspended for nine months, probably for the first time, and insisting…

For Vineet Gautam, the tall deodar tree in the backyard of his heritage home Mayvilla, had become a threat to his life and property. A massive landslide caused by incessant rains had washed away 80-100 metres of common road in the vicinity of his 1928-built home, dangerously tilting the massive tree. Having spent a night of anxiety and fear in his home, Vineet moved his family to a safer location the next morning, and had to spend three days to convince the municipal corporation to cut down and remove the tree. Vineet Gautam was fortunate as the civic authorities responded…

In India’s IT capital Bengaluru, sprinkled within its concrete jungle, are shady peepal trees adorned with serpent stones, bells and sacred threads, standing majestically atop gated, raised platforms. Often a pit-stop for tired travellers or an informal gathering place, these culturally-important open-air tree shrines or ‘kattes’ and temples, with their assemblage of native tree species, offer immense scope to enhance the green infrastructure within rapidly growing megacities, suggests a study. Offering a glimpse into the city’s native trees, the study documents 121 such species thriving in 69 sacred sites in Bengaluru, spread across 36 temples and 33 kattes, a sizeable…

Many apartment complexes and layouts in Bengaluru have large gardens with flowering plants and trees. A lot of yellowing or dry leaves fall to ground everyday in such gardens, and these are swept away regularly. Hedges are also routinely pruned to maintain aesthetic appeal. This generates significant amounts of garden waste. Many complexes dispose off garden waste to tractor operators, who pick it up, assuring it would be dumped in approved sites. Though these operators charge stiff prices, no one knows where they ultimately deposit the waste. I would like to highlight a better, responsible way of handling garden waste, based on…

On July 8 2019, about 500 middle class working professionals skipped work, school and college, ignored delayed train services, and braved heavy rains and jammed roads to turn up at a public hearing at an auditorium in the Bandra-Kurla Complex. Adivasis, students, professors and people from different walks of life had all gathered to raise their voices against the proposed felling of 2702 trees in Mumbai's Aarey Colony, to make way for a car shed of Metro-3. Their demand, the trees in this lush green forest be saved from the axe. Holding placards, shouting, booing and jeering, the attendees questioned…

“Bade mushkil se Eid mana paye,” says Mohammad Irshad, 53, of Shehjenabad locality in Bhopal’s old city area. “Pani hi nahin ghar mein. Mehmanon ki kya khatirdari kar paatey (we observed Eid with great difficulty. There is no water in the home. How could we entertain guests)? Bhopal, the “city of lakes”, is reeling under an unprecedented water shortage over the past 20 odd days, with the old city area, housing 43 per cent of the capital’s 21 lakh population, hit particularly hard. The entire supply of 30 MGD (million gallons per day) to these mainly low-income residents is from…

One morning, nearly a month after Cyclone Fani struck Odisha, Ashok Baral, a citizen of Bhubaneswar, came upon a fallen trunk of a banyan tree near the Stewart School boundary wall. The tree had been uprooted by the cyclonic storm Fani, which hit the city on May 3, 2019. Recalling that particular moment, Ashok says, “Though it was my regular route home from the milk vendor, it seemed as if the helpless trunk of the tree was trying to tell me something on this particular day. I stayed there, looked at the trunk for some time, and wrote a message…

‘Azim Premji University (APU) and Penguin Random House India released the book ‘Cities and Canopies: Trees in Indian Cities’ on June 20th, at Alliance Francaise. The book is available in bookstores across India, and on websites such as Amazon and Flipkart. The book is authored by Harini Nagendra and Seema Mundoli, faculty at APU. Grounded in extensive research, the book offers a fascinating journey on trees in Indian cities, exploring science, history, culture and imaginations around trees. Native and imported, sacred and ordinary, culinary and floral, favourites of kings and commoners over the centuries - trees are the most visible…