Environmentalists Object Tree Felling for Housing Project- Tie Ribbons around Trees
Mangaluru: On one hand, adults and children are busy planting saplings and posing for photo shots to be incorporated in the media as part of Vanamahotsava, simultaneously there are a few other people axing down trees either for road widening, infrastructure…and in this case, for a housing project. What’s going on? This story is related Mangaluru City Corporation’s move to construct an apartment for urban poor at Padavu village near Shakthinagar, in the outskirts of Mangaluru under the Ashraya scheme, which has now landed in controversy with environmental activists opposing it on the grounds that several trees would have to be cut for the project as it has been planned in what they said a deemed forest. In contrast, as per a senior Forest Department official the said site identified for the project is not a deemed forest.
In the meantime, activists of the National Environment Care Foundation {NECF} have tied friendship bands to trees in this forest area to prevent them from being felled for a housing project. Speaking to Team Mangalorean, Shashidhar Shetty, Secretary, National Environment Care Foundation (NECF) said, “Even before the project coming to a shape, several trees on about two acres of the nine acres of deemed forest were cut about three months ago. There is no proof who cut down the trees. According to a Supreme Court verdict the permission of the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change would have to be obtained for felling any tree in a deemed forest or to take up any other work. But unfortunately MCC is going ahead with the project without clearance from the Union government.”
“Some trees that have been cut but not been lifted. And many trees have been marked to be cut soon. After one of our NECF member learned about transportation of logs from the site three months ago, he tipped the Forest Department. According to the officials, they have seized three lorry loads of logs being transported from the site and have registered a case as the department has not given permission to anyone to fell trees on the site. However, some local people are saying that more than 25 lorry loads of logs have been transported from the site after the trees were felled. But even three months after seizing the logs the Forest Department has not filed a charge-sheet and was still saying that it is in investigating in this regard”
So in solidarity and support of Saving Trees, the activists have tied ribbons around the trees to save the remaining trees. They have also planted nearly 400 saplings on the site to replace the trees cut by “some unknown persons”. Shetty further said that NECF would file a case against the Forest Department if more trees were allowed to be cut on the site, and that the activists would protest against officials responsible for trees being felled in future.
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A Tree Saved! Environmentalists Relocate a Tree from being Axed down for Road Widening