700 Mumbai trees face axe; greens send SOS to CM Devendra Fadnavis

Mumbai: With heatwave warnings looming over the city, environmentalists have sounded an alarm over the proposed cutting and transplantation of more than 700 trees along the Eastern Express Highway corridor, calling it a severe ecological setback for Mumbai.

In a joint appeal to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Mumbai Mayor Ritu Tawde, Advanced Locality Management Group (Powai) Chairperson Pamela Cheema and NatConnect Foundation Director B N Kumar urged the government to immediately halt any move that would reduce the city’s already fragile green cover.

They warned that Mumbai was standing “at a dangerous crossroads” as soaring temperatures, shrinking open spaces and worsening air pollution increasingly threatened urban life.

Cheema described the proposed removal of trees as a direct threat to the city’s climate resilience. “Every tree felled today will worsen tomorrow’s heatwave. Every canopy lost will raise temperatures, pollution and public health risks. Mumbai needs more shade, more oxygen and more green lungs — not fewer,” she said.

Kumar invoked memories of the Covid crisis, saying the city should not forget the painful lessons of oxygen shortages during the pandemic. “We all witnessed desperate families searching for oxygen cylinders and hospitals gasping for supply. Nature provides oxygen free of cost every day through trees,” he said.

The activists stressed that mature trees are not obstacles to development but essential public assets that provide shade, oxygen, flood buffering and pollution control.

Kumar said Mumbai’s per capita tree cover needs to be increased at least twelvefold, as the city currently has only one tree for every four persons, against the thumb rule of a minimum of three trees per head, and regretted that urban planners were instead looking at axing 700 trees.

NatConnect also urged authorities to adopt the globally recognised 3-30-300 formula for urban planning — three trees visible from every home, 30 per cent tree canopy in every neighbourhood, and access to green space within 300 metres. “This should be Mumbai’s benchmark for the future, not mass tree felling,” Kumar said.

Cheema called for an immediate stay on tree cutting or transplantation, transparent disclosure of all permissions and objections, and the appointment of independent ecological and engineering experts to examine alternatives.

The activists said infrastructure development and environmental protection need not be in conflict, and that redesign, rerouting or phased execution could save a large number of trees.