Response 2:
Gardens and Statutory Protection of Trees
It is good that Gardens and Trees have been taken up by
Karmayogis. Nature, whatever remnants of nature and
trees now left out of the clutches of official tree
cutters, including bureaucrats, seem to be heaving a
sigh of relief that their
agony has at last drawn the attention of sensitive
humans.
It would be worthwhile going baxk to the genesis of the
issue to understand and realise our duty to save the nature. Trees
and public open spaces, including recreation and play grounds,
abounded in Mumbai like any other place in the country. Some
of our cities like Pune, Nashik, Nagpur, Ahmedabad, Vadodara,
Surat to illustrate cities within our easy reach were
full of trees such as bunian (vad- Ficus benghalensis and
mysorensis), pimple (peepul- Ficus reliogosa), mango (mangifera
indica), neem (Azadirichta indica), coconut (Cocos nucifera),
putranjiva (Putranjiva roxburghii), Sacred baobab (Adensonia
digitata) coexisting with exotics
introduced in the nineteenth century like rain tree (Samania
saman), gulmohar (Orodoxa regia), laburnum (Cassia fistula),
Bhendi and Thespicia populnea etc. It was a pleasure to
live in naturally urbanising villages (that our cities
were then).
Rampant cutting down of open spaces and trees started in the
1960s. Ratio of open space came down to 0.06 ha for
1000 population (as against 4 ha in London and 7 ha in US
cities). Feeling the agony of living in highly reduced open
spaces and treeless atmosphere, a few Bombayites agigated
against the rampant construction at FSI then ranging between
2.5 and 5.2 and got it down to uniform 1.33 in the Island
City and 1.00 in suburbs with 0.5 in some environmentally
fragile areas. Bombay, now Mumbai, with an average
population density of 27,000 persons per sq km (Census of
India 2001) with some regions exceeding 100,000 is
world's most congested city, suffocation of which is
experienced by everybody every moment.
The government has relaxed the FSI and Developnent Control
Rules in recent years beyond comprehension so much so that
it would not be a surprise if the congestion and crowding
increased and population density exceeded 40,000 at the next
2011 Census. London, in contrast, has a population
density of 1,200 per sq km.
The Maharashtra Urban Areas Preservation of Trees Act (the Act
for short) was enacted for the entire Maharashtra in 1975
in response to perseverent citizen agitation. Being
the first legislation in the country, it soon became the
model for other states to follow for preserving as well
as consciously and continuously augmenting the tree stock
in human settlements.
The Act has unfortunately become an ungraceful bone of
contention between citizens and the bureaucrats throughout
Maharashtra and more specifically in Mumbai. Citizens have
agitated and to some extent succeeded in making the Act
more stringent to assure the realisation of the twin goals of
conserving and augmenting the tree stock while the bureaucrats
have taken every effort to bypass and dilute the Act.
Recent messages on the Karmayog board show that the Act
has been mutilated by the government to defeat the
very
object of the Act without informing and consulting
citizens. This Act would rank as the only one in the
state and country to be perennially handled and
mishandled to be defeat the very object of legislating in
response to the citizen needs and aspirations. From
whatever dilutions it has undergone, one can say that
trees have become the evil target of anti-environment
actions of municipalities including the Municipal Corporation of
Greater Mumbai (MCGM). The blame should be and is lying on the
MCGM for making a mockery of peoples' fervent
expextations for survival of living beings. The Act has
now become the single serious anti-environment onslaught
on nature by the government.
We have to agitate against these inimical secret onslaught on
the survival of living beings. We must study the
original Act and the metamorphosis brought about by
bureaucrats so as to facilitate their cutting of trees. What
are our plans?
Best wishes.
Kisan Mehta & Priya Salvi
Save Bombay Committee and Prakruti
620, Jame Jamshed Road, Dadar East,
Mumbai 400 014
Tel: 0091 22 2414 9688
Mobile: Kisan Mehta - 92234 48857
Priya Salvi - 93231 96420
[The plans are similar to what we are trying for Cleanliness
and Stray Dogs. Form a group of mature, experienced,
committed people who are willing to work together and with BMC
to jointly work out the appropriate policy framework, offer
services (if possible), and be involved with monitoring and
feedback. We may have a meeting amongst ourselves in Dec. Else
it will have to be Jan, which seems more likely.
