STOP THIS Green Murder

  • 28/06/2008

  • Times Of India (New Delhi)

A Hyderabad TOI campaign has resulted in the revoking of all tree-cutting permissions in the city. Environmentalist Bittu Sahgal gets nostalgic about the slain banyan tree that triggered it all More than 100 years before the two-storey Paigah Palace was built by Sir Vikar-ul-Umra, a stately banyan tree occupied pride of place in a 150-acre woodlot in the city of Hyderabad. Those who know Paigah well confirm that it is to be admired less for its elegance, more for its climate-friendly architecture that incorporates two-footthick walls, ventilation panels and an orientation that accentuated natural light. They also admire Vikarul-Umra's foresight in recognising how much character the banyan tree bestowed to the Paigah palace. I have a suggestion to all those who joined the Times of India campaign to condemn the cutting of this banyan tree: hold a meeting to condole its death. At this condolence meeting, the names of the modernday architects and city planners who endorsed the decision to accept US$ 1.25 in fees from a US$ 5.5 million consular project in exchange for permission to bring down the venerable 200-year-old banyan tree should be read out loud. My father and I used to visit this tree decades ago when I was a student of the Hyderabad Public School. Like me, many children have swung on its aerial roots branches and many families have shared happy times under its vast canopy. When I heard the tree had been cut, I felt as though a limb of mine had been amputated. Things have changed in Hyderabad, which is fast following the example of so many other cities down the road to urban rot. In Mumbai last week, 200 residents got together in Juhu to protest against BMC permission granted to the Ronson Foundation to cut trees in an open space they were mandated to look after. The Jijamata Udyan had to be restrained from cutting hundreds of old trees in Byculla for an ill-conceived new zoo they wanted to build. In Malabar Hill, Dadar Parsi Colony, Navi Mumbai and along the Eastern and Western Highway trees and mangroves have vanished, mostly with the support of the Tree Authority, MMRDA or BMC. In Bangalore a local NGO Hasiru Usiru calculates that over 60,000 trees were felled to widen 90 roads along a 145-km length. Citizens who needed no fans, now want air-conditioners. In New Delhi the local government is hacking down trees to make way for the Commonwealth Games, flyovers, car parks, malls, and other infrastructure projects. Delhi's climate is becoming more extreme. In Chennai, trees are cut in the dead of night in localities such as Alwarpet Ayanavaram, Anna Nagar and T Nagar, and citizens are so disheartened that they have begun to believe (mistakenly) that it is pointless to complain. With its vanishing green cover, Chennai is also suffering acute water shortages. In Kolkata the Alipore Met Office records that June temperatures are over five degrees celsius above normal. Activists draw a direct correlation between unbearable city heat and the loss of thousands of old trees along Syed Amir Ali Avenue, Gariahat Road, Park Circus CIT Road, Beliaghata CIT Road, Manicktala Main Road and Narkeldanga Main Road, stretches of APC Road, AJC Bose Road and Rashbehari Avenue. You could multiply these stories many times over for every single Indian city, where carbon-absorbing, climate-moderating plants and earth have given way to cement and concrete that heats up cities. The "But it's only a tree'' brigade should know that every leaf of every tree cut down once served as an organic air-conditioner through a process called transpiration that causes leaves to be cooler than the surrounding air in summer. Every tree also buffers sound pollution. And every leaf helps asthmatics, the very young and the elderly to cope by collecting dust and suspended particulate matter. Urban children know something that urban planners do not