The fate of a megapolis …….Prabha Jagannathan
On April 17, the temperature of Delhi stood at a record 43.7 degree Celsius, the highest in 52 years. The Friday before that, the maximum temperature was the highest in 29 years. In November 2006, Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit observed that the sparrow population of Delhi seemed to be mysteriously disappearing. According to the Wildlife Protection Society, two major reasons could be the increasing use of chemicals and pesticides in farmlands in and around Delhi, heightening the toxicity of food for grain-feeding birds and the swift shrinkage of the sparrow’s habitat in tandem with the rapid expansion of the city. In addition, the higher chemicals/ pesticides used have also decimated insects on which the little avian species feeds.
A city court directed a 67-year old man to plant 210 trees in January 2009 as punishment for chopping down 42 trees in June 2003. In February this year, India joined the UN’s Plant for the Planet: the billion tree campaign after having planted 2.5 billion trees since 2007. That very month, the Delhi government drastically enhanced the security deposit for felling trees in the capital region while carrying out developmental work, from the existing Rs 1,000 to Rs 28,000 under the Delhi Preservation of Trees Act, 1994. In a country where an IPL team commands Rs 1,500 crore against a measly Rs 300 crore for re-charging water bodies, this would be piffle to a developer.
These newsbytes are milestones on a dystopic future we should fear. There is a direct ecospheric link between Delhi’s disappearing vultures, sparrows, its green cover and its maniacally transmogrifying urbanisation. The survival of all fauna, including humans, depends on sustainable usage of natural resources. A mass movement is imperative to sensitise people to the impact of mindless urbanisation on the region’s climate , flora and fauna and the forest cover of Delhi. An attendant strain on natural resources has meant a phenomenal rise in the sales of air conditioners, gensets, inverters, inverter batteries and energy guzzling lifestyles . But the tree, the single most life and earth-affirmative , energy conserving answer to a rapidly climate challenged world of today, has been assigned a step-child status.
Some 10,000+ trees were counted in the NDMC region by 2009-10 . According to the civic authorities, the city has been losing some 200-250 trees annually for the last five years, mainly during storms and heightened dry weather. That’s official. At least twice that number gets routed routinely for parking lots, shopping malls, Metro building work, road expansions, flyovers, and huge commercial and residential complexes. One citizen’s petition put the number of trees felled for Metro Phase I alone at 30,000 and projected felling of some 2,500 trees for the Phase I on the BRT corridor. But with Delhi’s ecological footprint spreading to subsume neighbouring regions, urbanisation without a mandatory green responsibility has been institutionalised into a norm.
In her Vatavaran report in 2008, Dr Iqbal Malik reveals the total village area in Delhi in the 1940s was about 900 sq km out of a total 1,458 sq km. This went down to 797 sq km in 1991 and 558 sq km in 2003. Simultaneously , villages also dwindled down to only 209 in 1991 from 348 in 1951 and a lower 135 by 2008. Urban villages lost their right to a Panchayat or Gram Sabha with direct community participation under the Constitution (73rd) Amendment Act. Rapidly diminishing rural lands pressured down cultivated lands in Delhi to only 3,4981 ha in 2007 against 48,445 ha in 2003. In the last 60 years, with increasing purchase of village and rural lands by government and private developers (often in nexus with villagers) in and around Delhi, there has been indiscriminate felling of trees and mutilation of green areas. Cultivable land belonging to one million one hundred thousand people disappeared gradually, the report holds.
In Look Afresh at Urban Greens, Monika Koul and A K Bhatnagar maintain adequate tree cover is crucial for economic and ecological security. Experts recommend that at least a third of India’s geographical area should be tree clad for sustainable environment and economic development…
The concept of a Tree of Life as a manybranched tree illustrating the idea that all life on earth is related cuts across philosophies, mythologies and religions. And we may need a rejuvenated Chipko movement to espouse that core principle of live and let live.