Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Documenting a green campus

Staff Reporter

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Friends of Trees, a non-governmental organisation working with the prime objective to promote environmental awareness and conservation of trees outside the forest areas, will celebrate World Environment Day with a novel programme at the Central Polytechnic, Vattiyoorkavu, on Monday.

According to general secretary C.N. Karunakaran, the organisation has documented the tree wealth on the polytechnic campus.

This is part of the ongoing initiative of preparing tree registers in various institutions. The tree register is a document containing the family name, scientific and local names, girth and location of each tree on the campus. Details of the trees are printed and distributed among the students and teachers and nameplates too will be fixed on the trees.

The polytechnic is the 11th institution selected by the Friends of Trees for documentation. It took almost three months to complete the documentation. Government Women's College, Government Arts College, University College, Jawahar Bal Bhavan, All Saints College, College of Engineering, Cotton Hill Higher Secondary School, Golf Club and Accountant-General Office are the other institutions where the tree registers have been prepared. Friends of Trees has instituted the `Vriksha Snehi' award. It also conducts study tours and talks by experts. There are 631 trees on the polytechnic campus spanning 12 hectares.

The campus has 51 species of trees belonging to 46 genus and 25 families. The campus has rare and medicinal trees found in metros such as `Mulluvengai,' `Veppu' and `Nelli.'

Though fruit bearing trees such as mango, jackfruit and tamarind add to the charm of the campus, the indiscriminate introduction of trees such as 117 Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus tereticornis) and 137 Australian Wattle (Acacia auriculiformis) which together account for 254 trees could have been avoided.

The trees were planted at the behest of the Social Forestry wing of the Forest Department, says Mr. Karunakaran.

A public meeting will be conducted on the campus as part of the celebrations. Uthradom Tirunal Marthanda Varma, head of the royal family of erstwhile Travancore, will inaugurate the public meeting. He will also launch the website of Friends of Trees.

Principal of the polytechnic Haroon Rashid will preside.

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