Giving voice to the trees

Durba Dutta Bhaumik introduces us to a group of tree lovers that is campaigning voraciously for the rights of the trees across the City...

Bangalore, once known as the ‘Garden City’ for its cool weather and lush greenery, is fast losing its touch with nature. Many are now concerned about the degradation of the city’s green cover thanks to indiscriminate commercial and residential expansion.

However, there is a group of professionals who are trying to find a solution to the problem of Bangalore’s disappearing trees. The group, called Neralu (www.neralu.in), meaning shade, is a citizen initiative that works hard to get the public to form a better opinion about the necessity of trees.

The activists of Neralu emphasise that the conservation of trees is necessary not only for the beautification of the city but also for maintaining the cool weather.

Sangeetha Kadur, a 32-year-old wildlife illustrator, an avid bird watcher and a rock climber, is one of the core group members of Neralu. Anush Shetty is another Neralu activist, a 29-year-old IT professional who has made cycling his primary mode of transport. 

Anush was furious when BMRCL announced that it would chop down trees on the roadsides for the Metro rail network. “When they (BMRCL) announced that they would take away large parts of the Nanda Parks and chop down a 3 km stretch of trees, I got in touch with civic bodies that were already protesting against the felling of trees on RV Road, Lal Bagh and Sangam Circle. Our protests were successful; they did not cut the trees, but just trimmed the branches,” said Anush.

It was during the protests that he realised that even though a vacuum exists around the notion of tree conservation, activism could change the viewpoint of the public given the right motivation. “I know, it cannot change overnight, but it has to begin somewhere.

Many activities were going on sporadically, but there was no co-ordination. After several attempts, it was clear that activities have to take place on a community level,” he said.

The current group came together through an event on plant taxonomy, organised by the Gandhi Krishi Vignana Kendra (GKVK) last year. “Three or four of us attended the event, the rest were contacted through the specialists who knew them,” said Sangeetha.

Deepak Srinivasan, a performance artist, media practitioner and faculty at the School of Art, Design and Technology, Yelahanka had organised a tree festival in 2010. “Everybody agreed on conservation, but, Deepak came up with the idea of a tree festival to celebrate the trees,” said Anush. 

The tree festival, held earlier this year, had a wide range of activities that roused the enthusiasm of the participants, who came from all age groups. There were games and riddles to make children aware of the common trees around them along with music, dance, nature walks, films and storytelling. Artists like Sadhvi Jawa helped participants make artwork with leaves, bamboo and other natural materials. 

Owned by all

The activities of the group are crowd-funded, hence there is no organisational ownership. “We wanted people to own the fest. You come, you join, you are Neralu. All of us are volunteers,” said Sangeetha. The group believes in transparency and consequently, its income and expenditure is displayed on its web page. 

Anush has also created citizen science conservation websites for bird-watching (www.migrantwatch.in), tree conservation (www.seasonwatch.in) and a nation-wide survey on jackals. “The idea behind these conservation websites is to get everyone involved in the conservation process through small activities that do not take a lot of time,” explained Anush. 

“For example, Season Watch is the website where one could learn how to watch a tree. How to identify the trees near one’s home, look at it every few weeks and feed data into the website. This data then becomes part of a massive research programme, which the specialists could use later,” explained Sangeetha.

Trees of Bangalore

In spite of incessant felling of trees, Bangalore can still boast about being one of the green cities in India. The most common trees in the City are the Rain tree, Jacaranda, Mahogany, African Tulip, Copper Pod, Pongam and Gulmohar. None of them are native to India.

“They came with the Europeans and have remained here ever since,” said Sangeetha. Of the native trees, members of the Ficus family, the Banyan and Peepul are a common sight, and also Hongemara, the Indian cork tree and Jamun. 

In a growing city, landscapes will always change. Asked what can be done to tackle space constraints that result in destruction of tree cover, Neralu activists said that conservation must take place at the micro-level. “If everyone can take care of their own neighbourhood, it can help in a big way,” they said.

Asked what Neralu would wish for if granted three wishes, they said: “We wish that people could spend more time with nature, especially children. We wish there would be trees along the sidewalks. We wish that government understood the importance of trees, because the issue is as important as traffic or the rise in temperature. Since we do not relate to trees as much as we do to our own convenience, they get ignored. Maybe some day, people will realise that urban development is not just about flyovers and buildings.”