City trees are the one relatively low-cost factor to making cities more sustainable.
A gulmohur in Bombay
In the run up to Mumbai’s municipal elections, of the many to-be-left-unfufilled promises made by political parties, two were common: less corruption and more “infrastructure”. The latter, in our peculiar notion of what makes a ‘world-class’ city, only means more roads, more bridges. No one promised to make our city more liveable. In my constituency, apart from the familiar talk-to-the-hand and offerings for lotus-eaters, there were many odd symbols for candidates: a sewing machine, an LPG cylinder and something that looked like a pasta machine cross-bred with a meat grinder. Not one had a tree or anything that looked like it.
In the last 20 or 30 years, we seem to have developed an odd view of what constitutes urban development: more grey concrete and fewer trees. Mumbai, Pune and Bangalore have all seen this. A 2008 report, based on RTI applications, showed that Mumbai had lost 25,000 trees to ‘development’ projects; and of those said to have been transplanted, no more than half a dozen survived. South Mumbai is a favoured target, as the wanton destruction of trees along Nepean Sea Road showed. As of May 2011, Mumbai is said to have only a little of 19 lakh trees left. In contrast, New York, to which we so like to compare ourselves, has an average of five trees per person despite having more high-rises than Mumbai, and it has, too, a plan to plant — and nurture — a million more (the 500,000th was planted in October 2011).
Urban trees :: Gulmohur, bamboo, and half moon rising
Urban trees :: Haji Ali
Urban trees :: Spathodea
On paper at least we have sufficient statutory protection. ‘Tree authorities’ are supposed to regulate and protect our cities’ trees. There are penalties for unlicensed tree felling.1 The reality is very different. At one point, the tree authority in Bangalore just did not exist. In Mumbai, it signed off on every proposal for tree felling, once running through an agenda of nearly two dozen proposals in less than 20 minutes; and in May 2009, approving various proposals for hacking a staggering 4000 trees around the city. The oddest thing about the 2009 approval was that all the main proposals related to water: over 2000 trees were ‘required’ to be felled for the Middle Vaitarna Dam project; and the connection between trees and water seemed to occur to nobody. Even more bizarre was the proposal to cut 111 trees for the Mahatma Gandhi swimming pool in Mahim, making one wonder what, according to our civic fathers, is of greater and more lasting importance. And another 1000-plus trees just had to go for the Bhandup Water Complex.
Wider roads do not make for a better city. If any evidence of this is needed, a drive on Mumbai’s Ghatkopar-Mankhurd Link Road, with the Deonar slaughter house and Govandi on one side and the Deonar dumping ground on the other, should be enough. The road is very wide, at least four lanes on either side, solid concrete. The entire stretch is a vision from hell: barren, dry, hard, dusty and polluted, a place of unrelenting hopelessness. You could say much the same about the major roads in Bangalore and Ganesh Khind Road in Pune. None of them had to be like this. But this is the stuff of “world class” cities. Yet, in the latest TimeOut’s cover story on Mumbai, every single expert identified traffic as the city’s most pressing problem, but not one suggested widening roads or killing trees as a solution.
There are many ways to kill trees, and chopping them down is only one. You can, for instance, in furtherance of a traffic congestion problem, widen the road and narrow the sidewalk so that the tree just can’t hold and then wait a few months for it to die. Saving trees is altogether more difficult. In Pune, responding to a PIL to save the trees on the Khind, a senior law officer told us that trees cause pollution because they force cars to idle under them. This would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic. Years ago, there was a proposal to knock down the two magnificent rain trees outside the Catering College at Dadar. These trees were a “nuisance”. They “caused accidents”. Never mind that they were standing there for over a 100 years minding their own business and that, statistically, there was no report of anyone crashing into those trees; they were suddenly ‘dangerous’. The Tree Authority was taken aback by the ferocity of the citizens’ oppositions. That, and an intervention by the High Court, ensured that those trees still stand. But for how long?
City trees are the one relatively low-cost factor to making cities more sustainable. Cleaner air, health, lower ambient temperatures, greenery, shade: we can make up a very long list. We should do what Pradip Krishen did for Delhi, and what they’re doing in New York: map our trees. But to start with, the next time we go past one of our few remaining veterans, let’s at least slow down or even stop to look. For all we know, it might be the last we see of the truest, gentlest friends of our cities.
In the run up to Mumbai's municipal elections, of the many to-be-left-unfufilled promises made by political parties, two were common: less corruption and more "infrastructure". The latter, in our peculiar notion of what makes a 'world-class' city, only means more roads, more bridges. No one promised to make our city more liveable. In my constituency, apart from the familiar talk-to-the-hand and offerings for lotus-eaters, there were many odd symbols for candidates: a sewing machine, an LPG cylinder and something that looked like a pasta machine cross-bred with a meat grinder. Not one had a tree or anything that looked like it.
