JOIN USBET urges Bengalureans to use legal foundation to protect city's greenery
Steamrolling public opposition, massive trees have been felled in the city for multiple road projects.
Citing the Karnataka High Court’s progressive orders on the Trees Act, the Bangalore Environment Trust (BET) has now urged all stakeholders concerned to leverage the strong legal foundation to restore the city’s green reputation.
The Trees Act does stress on transparency and public participation. But as BET notes, despite the act’s provisions, “there was practically no transparency about tree-felling activities in the city. Citizens would come to know about felling at the last minute and had no opportunity to raise any objections”.
To ensure transparency, BET has urged citizen activists and other stakeholders to note a key provision: “Whenever the BBMP or the forest department receives an application (for tree felling) from any person or organisation, it has to be uploaded on the BBMP website along with a public notice.”
Citizens are usually given 10 days to submit their objections to the authority concerned. “Objections are noted by the tree officer and are thereafter placed before the expert committee, which carefully examines each application.”
The expert committee will visit the site and inspect whether these trees are required to be felled or if they can be retained/transplanted. “Based on its observations, the committee shall prepare a report with its recommendations and submit it to the tree officer.”
The permission issued by the tree officer will have to be uploaded to the BBMP website. “All plans for compensatory plantation (in the ratio of 1:10) are to be uploaded. Any permission can be acted upon only after the authority concerned submits these compensatory plans to the tree officer, and the documents are uploaded to the forest department website.”
But this does not end with transplantation. The new rules mandate periodic reports on the survivability of the transplanted trees.
“These reports are to be uploaded to the forest department website. Felling activities in the city can be undertaken only after the process described above has been adhered to.”
The court had intervened in April 2019 due to the continued non-compliance under the Trees Act. It had asked the government to form a Tree Expert Committee (TEC).
Since then, BET notes, all applications are placed before the TEC, which evaluates whether trees can be saved by adopting any method (such as transplantation) and permits felling only as a last resort.