Aarey forest which forms the greenest patch in Mumbai, responsible for maximum fresh air and oxygen in the city witnessed the wrath of human exploitation recently. Despite severe criticism and protest from the common man, a huge patch of the forest was cleared by MMRCL with the permission of the government for metro construction.
Accordingly, 1561 trees were uprooted from Colaba to Speez that hampered metro construction and were transplanted in 13 different areas including Unit 20, Gate 20, Gate 25/6, the location opposite picnic point, next to Mithi River/close to Car Depot site, Durga Nagar and Gate 32. The government and MMRCL assured the citizens and the court that the trees will be taken care of. But a committee appointed by the court recently found out that 956 (61%) of those transplanted trees are already dead, reports TOI.
You Can Develop A Whole City Within A Year..But You Cannot Bring Back A Whole #AareyForest In A Year,When Oxygen Will Be Needed More Than A City's Development. So Save Green Lungs Of Mumbai To Save Your Lungs. #SaveAarey @deespeak @TandonRaveena @RandeepHooda @aliaa08 @Riteishd pic.twitter.com/PqCkLeQm4U
— Ketan Nardhani (@ketan83) September 9, 2019
As reported by Mid-Day, the Location-wise status of transplanted trees is as follows:
1. Unit 20: 399 transplanted – 235 dead
2. Gate 20: 81 transplanted- 51 dead
3. Gate 25/26: 64 transplanted- 46 dead
4. Opposite Picnic Point: 41 transplanted – 29 dead
5. Next to Mithi/Depot plot: 461 transplanted – 310 dead
6. Durganagar: 10 transplanted – 9 dead
7. Gate 32: 4 transplanted – 0 dead
Tree activist Zoru Bhathena told India Today, “The authority needs to check the health of a tree before uprooting and they must follow the prescribed procedure to ensure that it doesn’t die of shock.”
“Like a human organ transplant, similar precaution needs to be taken for trees. They should not dump the trees just in some empty space without examining if the soil will help the trees’ growth or not. In Aarey, they transplanted most of the trees on finding empty spaces and without applying mind. For years trees didn’t grow on those spots due to unfriendly soil conditions, how could it help the transplanted trees?” Bhathena asked.
For the metro work, authorities have uprooted around 2000 trees from the Aarey forest which is considered as ‘Lungs of Mumbai’. To compensate for the loss, they had also planted 21000 saplings in the forest. But the carelessness of the authorities towards the transplanted
The world is facing severe climate crisis with glaciers melting and forests burning around the world, its the need of the hour to take extreme care of the environment. And incidents like this are surely disappointing!