Don’t kill trees with concrete at the base
The phenomenon of trees falling during a gusty spell of rain in Bengaluru is common. Worryingly, around 1,000 trees and many branches fell in the span of a week, while 206 trees were uprooted on one rainy night alone. What is causing this new trend in Bengaluru, where civic authorities are unable to prevent big trees from crashing down on vehicles and walls, compromising the safety of passersby? The poet Gieve Patel had declared, “It takes much time to kill a tree”; but the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) is doing it with ease.
The culprit is the concretisation of roads and footpaths—the way of many other metros—that is slowly strangling full-grown trees. Thick layers of concrete or tar are poured on the base of trees, depriving them of water and nutrition. Older trees with deeper roots are able to sustain themselves for some time, but younger ones dry out. The National Green Tribunal has ruled that a 1-metre radius of earth around a tree should be kept free of construction, but our civic authorities fail to follow it. They are either axing trees for infrastructure projects or killing them with concrete, often in cahoots with the timber lobby.
Not that they are unaware of the effects. Environment minister Eshwar Khandre has himself admitted that concretisation of pavements is preventing rainwater from seeping into the soil, causing trees to fall. Concrete may be convenient, but is detrimental to civic ecology. Town planners should realise that concretising roads causes flooding during the monsoons, and it is preferable to lay pavers on pavements to allow rainwater to percolate down. This ensures that the water table remains high and trees healthy.
The other reason given is that the uprooted trees belong to exotic species, and it is preferable to plant hardy native varieties that have a higher survival rate. To its credit, the BBMP takes up sapling planting drives along arterial roads; but it should also ensure that they survive. The Palike’s tree officers should team up with residents to survey each ward and save dying trees. Killing trees is a self-defeating exercise which will turn the city into a heat island, and its citizens will have to pay a high price in the long run. We are only hastening the process of climate change and inviting extreme weather events.