The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Better care could have saved trees

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 28, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Better care could have saved trees

By K. Satyamurty

A motorcycle which was damaged when a branch of a tree fell during the storm last week. — Photo: K. Bhagya Prakash

BANGALORE, APRIL 27. Many of the trees which fell during last week's gales and sudden rain could have been saved if they had been maintained with more care, according to horticultural experts.

According to estimates, hundreds of trees fell over two nights and days. On Sankey Road, more than 30 trees were uprooted. Considerable damage was caused to property.

S.G. Neginhal, whose expertise was used by R. Gundu Rao and Ramakrishna Hegde during their tenures as Chief Minister, said most trees planted on roadsides were carefully selected. "Compared to 1981, when dusty winds were common on the city outskirts, there is more greenery now,'' said the horticultural expert who has supervised the planting of more than one million trees.

What really went wrong was the lack of care which trees need even after they grow, Mr. Neginhal said. Repairs and widening of footpaths and digging for laying cables had weakened the "side roots" of trees in many areas. This apart, large-scale cementing of the ground all around roadside trees deprived the roots of proper aeration and water absorption. Such trees were bound to fall if there were strong winds.

The trees were planted 15 to 20 feet apart on roadsides with sufficient space for branches but received more sunlight from the side nearer the road and thus grew slanting onto the roads. Careful pruning of trees helps, Mr. Neginhal said. Unfortunately, most utility agencies cut branches without much thought, and sometimes trees started leaning to one side.

Asked about "unsuitable" trees being planted, especially in new layouts, he said: "A Gulmohar belongs to a park, not a relatively narrow road... We need a scientific approach to planting trees.'' He suggested a careful enumeration of trees to identify sick trees which were likely to fall easily, and fell them. "This should not be done by the BMP alone but should involve others such as the Horticulture and Forest departments,'' he said.

K.V. Narendra of the Urban Research Centre, Malleswaram, helped with an enumeration of trees between 1991 and 1993, and about 13 lakh trees were enumerated with the help of students. "Though the planting of trees in the 1980s started with the Forest Department, the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike and the Bangalore Development Authority, which carried it on, seem to have done a poor job,'' he said.

Most of the trees then planted had reached the end of their normal life span, and many of them fell around the same time, he explained.

Most of the pruning of grown trees was done out of necessity by agencies such as the power utility, and was not monitored by the Forest Department, he pointed out. "Many such trees were permanently maimed and became weak,'' he added.

Mr. Narendra felt that in many neighbourhoods, "dwarf trees" such as the Singapore Cherry, which normally grew only 15 feet tall, were planted. But due to Bangalore's soil and climate, they grew much taller, he said. These could have easily toppled when there were strong winds.

"When old and sick trees have to be felled, they could be auctioned and the funds used to plant more trees and for maintaining the other trees in a scientific way,'' he suggested.

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