There is rarely a shortage of reasons to chop down trees in a city. Development, road-widening, infrastructure building, visibility woes….
What is harder to explain, however, is why the promise to replace those trees so often remains just that — a mere promise.
Caught between the reasons for felling trees and the failure to replenish them, Kochi has been steadily losing its green cover. The latest example came last week near Changampuzha Park, where three shade trees close to Metro pillar 454 were cut down, allegedly because they were “blocking the visibility” of a skincare clinic named Skin Secrets.
According to reports, the trees had been planted by Kochi Metro Rail Ltd (KMRL) around 15 years ago as part of compensatory planting for trees felled during metro development.
“The trees were cut without the required permission,” Mayor V K Minimol tells TNIE. She adds that the corporation has directed the police and the social forestry department to take action.
“The authority to impose a fine, based on the value of the trees, rests with social forestry, along with the requirement for replantation. But the police must first register a case and issue notice to the establishment. This is yet to happen,” the mayor says.
An officer at the Elamakkara police station, which has jurisdiction over the area concerned, maintains that they have “not received an official complaint from the corporation secretary”.
“That’s the norm. We can act only if the due process is followed,” the officer adds.
TNIE’s calls to Skin Secrets went unanswered.
Meanwhile, the Ernakulam District Residents’ Association Apex Council and students of St Teresa’s College have filed official complaints over the issue. Notably, the students even emailed a petition to Chief Minister V D Satheesan.
Nature lovers’ concern is not merely about the three fallen trees. It is about the contradiction between the efforts being made by citizens to increase the city’s green cover and the ease with which existing trees can disappear.
“Climate change is highly palpable. This is against the very survival of the city as temperatures are around two degrees higher in the city compared to the rest of the district,” says a government environment expert, requesting anonymity.
“As concerted efforts are under way for mitigation, and planting trees is one of the key measures, this is totally opposite to what we are standing for, given that the situation is worsening. If no strong action is taken in this particular case, it will set an unhealthy precedent. If action is taken, it will serve as a deterrent.”
For those who have watched Kochi change over the decades, the loss is not difficult to see.
Social activist Ranjit Thampy remembers a much greener city, particularly around Maharaja’s College Ground and Marine Drive. “Trees have disappeared in the name of development,” he says.
“There are not many shaded stretches in the city. Once you step out, this is visible. There is also the question of whether every tree that becomes inconvenient really needs to be felled.”
In several cases, professional pruning could have been an alternative, Thampy notes. “Yet trees are often axed entirely,” he says.
The three trees at Changampuzha Park are part of a larger pattern.
As many as 1,160 trees were felled in the district for NHAI road development, with a long-standing promise to plant 10 times the number of trees removed.
That means 11,600 trees are to be planted as compensation. A proposal has been prepared, but implementation is still pending.
“KMRL too has to undertake replantation, but they have not yet approached the department. A government order mandates replantation when trees are felled. The problem is that there is no clear provision to take action when the replantation directive itself is not complied with,” says Fen Antony, assistant conservator of forests (social forestry), Ernakulam.
The three fallen trees, therefore, raise a question larger than whether the skincare brand had permission to remove them. What value does a city actually place on a tree?
A newly planted sapling may satisfy a plantation target on paper. It cannot immediately replace the shade, canopy and ecological functions of a tree that has stood for over 15 years.
And the loss is not always visible in a statistic. It is felt in hotter streets, exposed pavements and public spaces that offer little relief from the sun.
That is why experts argue that the conversation needs to move beyond the familiar cycle of “plant and cut”.
“This is a longer conversation, and does not restrict itself to cutting down and replanting trees alone. It starts with acknowledgement of nature in urban spaces. Once we ‘see’ and perceive nature amongst the roads, pollution, traffic and buildings in the urban spaces, we will begin preserving and protecting it,” says Aswathi Jerome of Trees of Cochin.
Kochi does not lack plans to become greener. What it lacks is the luxury of losing the green cover it still has while waiting for those plans to materialise.
Under the `1-crore ‘City Bloom’ project, the corporation plans to expand green spaces along road medians, roadsides, public spaces, flyovers, public walls and the premises of the corporation and other public institutions.
Flowering trees, including Manimaruthu, Mandaram, Rose Trumpet and Gulmohar, are proposed as part of the initiative to address the urban heat island effect, climate change and air pollution.
The corporation has also earmarked `2 crore for mangrove regeneration. The plan includes removing waste from existing mangrove forests, reviving degraded areas and developing new mangrove patches wherever feasible.
An additional `50 lakh has been allocated for agricultural-sector projects, including smart urban farming.
All of this sounds great. But the real test lies in the plans materialising.
For a city coping with the consequences of cutting down trees, the challenge is not simply to plant more. It is to make existing trees part of the city’s development calculus, rather than treating them as expendable whenever they come in the way.
A city trying to cool itself cannot keep cutting its shade. Climate change and global warming are no longer scientific jargon. Every citizen feels the blaze.