The Government's resolution of axing down thousands of trees in Delhi came at a juncture where most residents already had cold feet in anticipation of the impending smoggy and incommodious winter. Similar is the scenario in Dehadun, the eco-sensitive provisional capital of Uttarakhand, where several magnificent trees have been razed to the ground in the last couple of weeks. All this under the garb of excuses like chalking out Government residences, resolving problems like traffic bottlenecks, trees being already decayed and road expansion. Other trees have also been marked to be chopped with Government permission, in the past few weeks. This has been done much to the consternation of residents and environmental activists alike.
While the clearing of forest territory for accommodating spiralling construction needs has been an established practice across the globe, what has made the environmentalists and citizens collectively dissent in the wake of this moveIJ
This community opposition to tree felling, reminds one of the spirit of the Chipko movement dating back to the 1970s. While the torchbearers of the original Chipko Andolan,were foresighted in their vision to protect forests--lack of which they could foresee would destroy ecology and their livihood-for their modern counterparts, the anger stems from the fact that the they have suffered enough already.
Indian cities being few of the most polluted in the world, the residents have been enduring grave respiratory, dermatological and ocular distress in the last few years, as every year concludes with life being enveloped by a thick chemical air.
When the sponsors of air pollution like factories, manufacturing plants and vehicles have steadily exceeded their emission limits all along, the main defence mechanism against this is to nurture trees. Mature green trees release maximum oxygen per tree in annual terms, when compared with the young trees. Hence, the flimsy justification provided by lobbies supporting the deforestation drive, that saplings can be planted in lieu of chopped trees as a replacement, is a pointless one.
Traditional indigenous trees like Ashoka, Banyan, Neem, Teak and Peepal have tremendous capacity for carbon sequestration which leads to intrinsic environmental cleansing over the years. Replacing them with other faster growing varieties is not a viable option in the long run.
In the last twenty years Dehradun has become the victim of reckless tree felling. Thick greenery bordering city segments like Mussoorie diversion area, Rajpur Road, Sahastradhara, Raipur and others, have turned concrete with upcoming residences,shopping arcades and commercial setups.
The city even during 1990's was well known for its pleasing climate, natural beauty and tourist attractions. Even in the peak summer months, the evening and morning temperatures were moderate, hardly soaring above 20 degree Celsius. Sporadic rain spells around the year, would contribute to the lush forests and keep the ground water levels optimum. Several now extinct seasonal rivers and springs would also be irrigated intensively.
The resident population of the city has been growing at an alarming rate since the decade 2000-2011, owing to its becoming the provisional state capital and the resultant industrialisation, corporatisation and job generation. Massive transformation of agricultural land, forest areas and open green spaces into commercial and residential built up area has taken place.
Alongside the construction spree there has been a tremendous spike in vehicular traffic and a rising level of environmental pollution. Hence, while deforestation took place at a drastic rate, there was also a simultaneous increase in sources of air pollution.
Another really disturbing effect of tree felling has been the loss of fertile agricultural land. Trees anchor the soil with their roots, preventing widespread erosion through rain and wind.
Without adequate tree population a valuable fertile top soil is wasted recklessly. It poses myriad agricultural and crop health challenges in the coming times. With decreasing rainfall being recorded each year, the city of Dehradun is also heading towards water scarcity. Depleting rivers, lakes, springs and ground water resources, all have major repurcusions on shrinking drinking water availability.
In a nut shell this ruthless axing of trees over two decades has triggered drying of precipitation, disrupted weather cycles and decreased soil fertility.
As peope hold these old trees and stand by them in the face of this threat, it is high time more of us shun our armchair activism and join in actively, this crusade against environmental destruction.The time is not far when we will be in the danger of being strangulated in these self created concrete jungles our cities are gearing up to become. What could be the justification for a type of development for which we are sacrificing our own existence eventuallyIJ
(The writer is a retired officer of Uttarakhand Government)