BENGALURU: Tired of indiscriminate chopping of trees in the city, the residents of Sarjapur have taken it upon themselves to save four trees from being felled.
After much struggle, Sarjapur Residents’ Welfare Association finally got permission from the Forest Department to translocate these trees. Interestingly, they managed to collect `3 lakh for the purpose from crowdfunding in a matter of just two weeks. Tree translocation firm Jeyam Landscape from Chennai is providing the service.
The cost covers getting the equipment, pruning, applying medicine to the trees and then finally transplanting them in a new place.
The four trees being translocated include two peepal trees, both 50 years old and one Banyan and one Neem tree, both less than 10 years. Three trees will be implanted in Adventure Academy in Sarjapur Road and another one at Villa Community. The process of translocation started on Friday.
Raicy Mathew, environment secretary of Sarjapur RWA, has been instrumental in the process. “There was a huge tree near Sarjapur police station which attracted beautiful birds. One fine day, I saw the branches of the tree being chopped by half. It was being done for road widening. I saw many trees adjacent to the police station being axed,” Raicy said and added, “I brought the issue to the RWA’s notice. This is when many like-minded people came together and research started.”
The issue of tree felling, however, caught attention only when Sarjapur residents came out to protest on March 26 and walked from Dommasandra to Attibele. In March alone, 80 trees were axed for road widening on Dommasandra-Sarjapur Circle.
RWA member Joy V R said, “The forest department said they would temporarily stopping the work but told us that they could not fund us.”
“We received tremendous support from BESCOM, police and the forest department. In fact, Raghunandan, a BESCOM official, offered to contribute for pruning,” Joy added.
Deepika Bajaj, Deputy Conservator of Bangalore Urban, said, “We were under a lot of pressure as the tenders were out and the vendor was eager to finish cutting the trees. But I was in support of the residents.”