“What’s the point of development when our kids are going to die because of pollution?”

Earlier this
month, hundreds of Mumbaikars, including young children, came together for a
cause – to protest against the proposed cutting of 2,702 trees at Aarey for the
car shed of Metro 3. They braved the rain, shouted slogans and formed a human
chain.

While both
the incidents took place centuries apart, the narrative was common — to save
trees. There have been instances where thousands of trees were cut in the name
of development. The metros, monorails or the bullet trains have come at a price.
We asked citizens and authorities to comment on how to strike a balance between
development and saving the environment.

At a
conference held at Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh recently, Prime Minister
Narendra Modi announced to combat desertification by restoring 26 million
hectares of land by 2030. At the same time, just 50 kms from here, in Gurgaon, the
BJP government in Haryana opened up 33% of the forest area in the Aravallis for
real estate. The city will lose nearly 60,000 acres of forest cover, which is 50%
of the Aravallis.

“Earlier,
Gurgaon and Faridabad were jungles, but with it becoming an IT hub, many people
moved here. Both these cities were developed at the cost of forests. Since
areas in Aravallis are mostly rocky, the land is being used illegally for
mining,” said Shobhit Agarwal, 28, a local resident of Faridabad, Haryana.

“Gurgaon is
no more a jungle of trees. It is a concrete jungle. We don’t see trees here.
All we get to see is development,” said Poonam Bhargava, 54, who lives In Janakpuri
in South West Delhi.

The
ground reality

For the
development projects, authorities cut trees and then promise to compensate by
planting saplings as many as three or four times for every tree cut. But the
ground reality is quite different.

Survival of
saplings is a major concern. Due to lack of care, saplings die even before
compensating for the trees lost. “Even if they plant 3,000 trees for cutting
1,000 trees, only 30-40% saplings survive. Survival should be 90% and above, but the
ground reality is the other way around,” said Dr Pradeep Tripathi, founder of
Green Yatra, an NGO that works for the environment.

Recently, the
Uttar Pradesh government set the world record by planting 22 crore saplings on a
single day in Lucknow. But the experts question its utility. “When you are
planting trees to make a world record, you are not planting trees, you are just
making records. The Yogi government planted so many trees, but how many of them
survived?” asked Tripathi, who is also known as the man who is creating Mumbai’s
first urban forest.

“Green
highways are only the paper; I see no such in reality. Plus, there’s no use of
plantation if saplings don’t survive. When the temperature goes up to 45
degrees, who looks after these saplings?” asked Dr Tripathi adding: “During Shivraj
Singh Chauhan’s government, nearly 6.5 crore trees were planted. But two years
ago, it was revealed in news that the sapling which the CM had planted didn’t survive. In
fact, the survival was not even 10%, which means out of 6.6 crore trees, nearly
6 crore saplings died.”

Citizens
should be made aware

Poonam
Bhargava believed that the government planting 2-3 tress is not going to help unless
we, citizens, are aware of the ill-effects of cutting trees.

When as
spoke to an officer working with the Lucknow Metro Rail Corporation, he said on
the condition of anonymity: “Any development project is beneficial to the environment
in the long run.”

“We planted
at least 10 trees in lieu of every tree cut. 90% of them survived. Out of 2,300
trees we touched upon only 1,100. Out of these, we relocated 470 trees. We had to
cut some 600 trees as all of them couldn’t be transplanted,” he added.

According to
the LMRC, of the total trees identified for the Lucknow metro project, 880 trees
were cut, 410 were relocated and 537 were saved.

The LMRC
officer said that as far as the environment is concerned, the LMRC had planted
10,000 trees as compensation for every tree cut for the metro project.
“Initially, we took permission to touch upon 2,300 trees, but we made some
changes in the planning — like we changed the alignment of the rail map and altered
the breadth and position of the staircase.”

When the
reporter asked the LMRC officer if the development projects are a threat to the
environment, he said, “Definitely Not!” He added: “Four years back, when there
was no metro in Lucknow, the pollution level was increasing exponentially, but after the construction of the metro, pollution level has decreased by six times. On an
average 65,000 people are commuting using metro that means the same number will
go off-road.”

“Infrastructure
development is killing nature”

“Nearly 25
lakh people die every year due to air pollution. And that’s a big number. Of
what use is this development then when your two-year-old kid may die because of
it it?” asked Dr Pradeep Tripathi.

Delhi’s
green cover has been depleting fast over the years due to rampant tree
felling. Over one lakh trees were cut during 2006-2014 for metro and other
development projects, which reduced the city’s forest cover to 10% from the
optimum level of 33%, a Delhi high court appointed amicus informed the court.

A total of
53, 467 mangrove trees in Maharashtra and Gujarat are to be removed to make way
for the bullet train project. The project involves a total forest area of 137.149
hectares, including 24.137 hectares mangrove forest area.

On August 29, the
Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) Tree Authority granted an approval to cut as many as 2,700 trees for the Metro car shed in Aarey in Mumbai.

However, on
September 17, the Bombay High Court said that Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Ltd
(MMRCL) should not cut trees in Aarey for a Metro car shed till September 30.

When Gaon
Connection asked Tripathiof the possibilities of saving 2,700 Aarey trees, he
said: “There are seven-eight other options available in Mumbai besides Aarey.
Authorities say the other options will cost them nearly Rs 750 crore. Aarey is
the cheapest one, plus it is the government’s property, so it will save them a
huge sum.”

Countering
this, the LMRC officer, who was based in Mumbai for several years, said: “There’s
no substitute for the car shed construction in Mumbai. Talking about Aarey, it
shrinks every year. But nobody talks about that. Mumbai is unlike Delhi and
Lucknow, its geographical area is more like a long patch of land. It cannot
expand laterally like other cities.”

So, what
can be done?

“As for now,
contractors, who are not passionate about planting the trees, plant trees. They
just do it for the sake of doing work. The government should give the onus of
plantation to the passionate NGOs and the locals,” said Tripathi whose NGO is
planning to plant 10 crore trees across India by 2025.
They have planted 5 lakh trees so far. The NGO aspires to grow the urban
dense forests across Mumbai and Maharashtra.

Tripathi told
Gaon Connection about a Japanese method –Miyawaki — that can create dense forests in cities within a short
span. He said, “With the help of Miyawaki, a two feet long sapling can grow
into a 20 feet long tree within two years. Normally in a one-acre land, not
more than 1000 trees could be planted, but with this method, we can plant 12,000
trees, with three trees in a land of one square meter. After two years it
becomes maintenance-free.”

“Authorities
can help it grow near toll roads, petrol pumps, highways and food courts; there
they can grow them in one-acre land. They should use this innovative method and
form cluster forests,” added Tripathi, “When the project to construct highways
passes people then should start compensating for trees loss, so that when after
the completion of the project, those trees will be big enough to compensate for
the loss.”

Talking about
the Miyawaki technique, the LMRC officer said: “Big vehicles need a certain
turning radius. Say, if you are putting the cement on a space, you don’t stand
on that particular spot and then pour the cement, you need to stand on a
boundary. Similarly, we can’t first plant trees and then proceed with the
construction work.”