To spread awareness on medicinal plants, Department of AYUSH together with Government Ayurveda College has launched ‘Moolika Dasara’ throughout the district.
Planting Sapling: About 30,000 saplings of over 50 medicinal plants like Bringaraja, Madhushalini, Nelli, Vandagala and Brahmi will be planted in all the taluks of the district.
‘Mane Maddu’: Women participating in Mahila Dasara will be groomed on making ‘Mane Maddu’ (home medicine) using medicinal plant to treat common ailments.
Makkala Dasara: Medicinal plants will be on exhibit at Kukkerahalli lake premises where students will be educated on medicinal plants by Ayurveda Medicine students. A quiz to identify medicinal plants will also be conducted for the students.
Raitha Dasara: Farmers visiting Raitha Dasara will be given medicinal plant saplings free of cost to spread awareness on them.
Mini garden: Institutions and public in city will be encouraged to develop mini garden of medicinal plants.
Awareness Rally: An awareness rally as part of ‘Moolika Dasara’ will be taken out throughout the city by students of Ayurveda College with distribution of leaflets on medicinal plants.
Guests arriving for Dasara programmes will be greeted with a sapling of medicinal plant instead of a bouquet, according to sources in AYUSH Department.
source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> General News / September 04th, 2014
Those weekend trips you made to a hill-station or to your farmhouse cushioned amidst nature, need not be just during the weekends. If Shubhendu Sharma and Afforestt have their way, every backyard in our country will have abundant greenery. Shubhendu’s company grows urban forests that are maintenance-free, natural forests using afforestation methods from Japan and through some research of their own. And all these forests can be grown in just two years time.
“Our forests grow ten times faster than trees planted conventionally, giving you the equivalent of a 100-year old natural forest in just ten years,” says Shubhendu proudly. Afforestt can create dense forests with three-five trees per square metre, in areas as small as 1,000 square feet. And their maintenance-free, natural, bio-diverse forests cost only a tenth of making lawns. Afforestt uses only native species and works with 100% organic materials to mimic what nature creates.
Shubhendu is targeting people who prefer natural landscapes to manicured lawns or exotic trees, for the later does more harm than good to the environment. Afforestt is making urban forests in corporate campuses, around apartment buildings, hospitals, schools etc. Another plus about these urban forests is they can soak grey water coming out of sewage treatment plants, hence aiding purification of air and water.
Shubhendu stimulus to startup was his stint as a volunteer in the afforestation team at his previous employer (Toyota) as well as his personal hobby of afforestation. “All this started when I met Dr. Akira Miyawaki, whose afforestation methodology (known as the Miyawaki Method) makes forests grow ten times faster. I was fascinated with his work and joined his team as a volunteer to cultivate a forest in our Toyota factory premises,” says Shubhendu. He subsequently started experimenting with modifications to the Miyawaki Method to reduce costs involved and to Indianise the method. “And this resulted in Afforestt’s method, which is a modification of the Miyawaki method using organic soil amenders,” explains Shubhendu.
After practicing the methods successfully in his backyard at Uttaranchal, Shubhendu decided to combine his passion and hard work and make a living out of the opportunity. The first reactions from landscapers and NGOs involved in environment conservation were negative. Despite naysayers, Shubhendu formed his team and started Afforestt. And since January 2011, Shubhendu has been increasing the green cover in our country, the Afforestt way.
Shubhendu dreams to change the face of our planet for good. “We have lost most of our natural habitat in the name of economic progress/development; Afforestt will help correct this . My mission is to bring back the natural greens in which we humans deserve to live,” he says.
Based in Bangalore, Afforestt can currently work across the Indian geography. Afforestt has so far 11 forests in five cities from Kerela to Uttarakhand. “We can create forests anywhere and everywhere, using materials available within a 100 km radius of the site,” says Shubhendu.
What Shubhendu has set out to do, will impact all of us but he draws his personal motivation from being able to create something of his own. He shares an incident, when two volunteers joined two different batches of his afforestation programs. One a two and half year old child who planted the saplings all by herself, as if she had always known the way it had to be done. Another a 92 year old lady who planted the first sapling with her son, murmuring a silent prayer; knowing what a tree stands for. “The realization that what I am doing is enjoyed and loved by an age group spanning a whole human lifetime gave me a great sense of achievement,” says Shubhendu.
This year, Afforestt has launched Urban Containerized Gardens (UCG) which will enable people to grow greens indoors and on rooftops. Talking about revenues, Shubhendu says, “We charge our clients for total area covered, which builds in our profit margin. For UCG we will charge as per the number of containers bought.” About UCG Shubhendu has invented a technology using which the containers that don’t have to be watered and maintained regularly. Afforestt is trying to keep gardens as maintenance free as possible. Their gardens are 100% organic and will be used to grow food as well. In the next six months Afforestt plans to launch Do-It-Yourself (DIY) kits for UCG where hobbyists can make their own indoor and rooftop gardens using the DIY kits.
“Adivasis are rulers of forests But some of them and Tribals who caught up with modern civilisation are living under deplorable conditions,” opined writer Prof. Aravind Malagatti.
He was speaking after inaugurating a day long seminar on “The status of Adivasis and Tribals” organised jointly by Aranya Moola Adivasigala Hitarakshana Vedike (Forum of Original inhabitants of forests) and Karnataka Rajya Hindulida Vargagala Jagruta Vedike (Karnataka State Backward Classes Awareness Forum) at Maneyangala, Kalamandira on Hunsur road today.
Pointing out that the soul of Adivasis and Tribals lie in forests, Prof. Malagatti regretted that the onslaught of civilisation is hurting thei social structure.
Stressing that Adivasi culture, lifestyle and other social practises can never be linked with modernisation, he called upon the government for setting up of exclusive residential schools for Adivasis in urban areas.
Earlier, Adivasi troupes comprising mostly of children, presented a magnificent tribal dance, dancing to the tunes of music generated by using water drum, kerosene cans, oil tins and the like. Floral tributes were offered to the portrait of tribal leader Birsa Munda.
Litterateur Prof. Neelagiri Talwar, journalist Rajashekar Koti, Backward Classes Forum office-bearers K.S. Shivaramu, C. Naganna, Adivasi Forum President Gopal Poojar, Adivasi leader P. Basavaraj and others were present.
source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> General News / August 27th, 2014
Zoo Executive Director B.P. Ravi is seen presenting a memento to the representatives of Kumar Organic Products Ltd., Bangalore, which renewed the adoption of Tigress ‘Manya’ for the 6th time and her son ‘Shaurya’ for 4th time consecutively.
Mysore :
Kumar Organic Products Ltd., Bangalore, has renewed the adoption of Tigress ‘Manya’ f or the 6th time and her son ‘Shaurya’ for 4th time consecutively by making a payment of Rs. 2 lakhs for a period of one more year ending up to 24.8.2015 and 28.9.2015 respectively for both mother and son.
Mysore Zoo, has in a press release, expressed its gratitude to Kumar Organic Products for their support and involvement in conservation efforts.
“We hope that their continued support inspires other Corporates / Institutions to take up the cause of conservation,” said the release and added, “There is overwhelming response from the sponsors towards adoption and till date the total amount collected towards adoption is Rs. 17,18,393 compared to Rs.16,65,393 collected during the last year on the same date.”
Adoption of Animals
The II PU students of Maharshi PU College have adopted a Love Bird of the Zoo for a period of one year from 22.8.2014 to 21.8.2015 under ‘Adoption of Animals’ scheme by paying Rs.1,000 as adoption fee.
The following persons have also adopted the animals under the scheme: Shivu (Kajani), Mysore – Indian Cobra (Rs.2,000); Vikrant Yadav, New Delhi – Love Bird (Rs.1,000).
source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> General News / August 26th, 2014
It’s official. Rearing and selling Japanese quails is not illegal in the state anymore. The state government has lifted a three-year-old ban, after a recent directive from the Centre removed Japanese quail from schedule IV of The Indian Wildlife Protection Act (TIWPA). Till recently, the state forest department not only prohibited rearing and selling the bird, but also booked those who sold it. All this even as neighbouring Tamil Nadu allowed Japanese quail farming, including farming and trading.
Demand is high for quail meat and eggs / Photo: en.wikipedia.org
But with the Centre’s directive in July, followed by the state’s order withdrawing the prohibition in August, it’s hoped that the long prevailing confusion over Japanese quail among breeders, wildlife volunteers, and pet traders will finally come to an end.
Farming and trading in Japanese quail (known as gowjala hakki locally) was in disarray as forest officials, as well as the forest department’s investigative cell, constantly raided outlets selling meat and eggs, both of which are in demand. Not stopping there, even those who brought Japanese quails and their eggs from neighbouring states were booked by forest sleuths here. Traders faced repeated harassment in the form of stock seizures and booking of cases under various sections of TIWPA.
NO LICENCE REQUIRED
The sleuths had justified their actions based on a September 2011 directive from the Centre, which asked state governments not to issue fresh licences either for Japanese quail farming or to expand existing facilities. The directive had cited the inclusion of Japanese quail in schedule IV of TIWPA.
As a result, thousands of people who wanted to set up quail farms in the state, as well as retailers who wanted to sell quail eggs, found their applications in limbo. The new order has dismantled the licensing system.
State Forest Department brass confirmed that there is no more need for a licence, which was mandatory till recently. Chief Wildlife Warden and Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF), Karnataka, Vinay Luthra, told Bangalore Mirror: “Japanese quail has been removed from all the schedules of TIWPA. Henceforth, no prior permission is needed to rear or trade in it. There is no need for a licence either.”
Rearing and selling Japanese quail will henceforth be hassle-free in the state, experts said. “Definitely this order is a boon to this sector. Quail is a very good bird to rear as poultry. The demand for Japanese quail meat and egg is high, and the trade has scope for expansion. With the ban gone, hatcheries will get eggs and chicks without any trouble,” said Prakash Sannamani, a doctorate holder and specialist in Japanese quail.
source: http://www.bangaloremirror.com / Bangalore Mirror / Home> Bangalore> Others / by Chetan R, Bangalore Mirror Bureau / August 21st, 2014
Open your eyes to alternative, energy-efficient technologies
It could be anyone who could be part of this training. From farmers of Anekal wishing to build their own home, to a mason from Uttarakhand or an IT professional trying to understand the effectiveness of using mud.
Starting on Thursday, Gramavidya will conduct a three-day training programme on ‘Alternative and energy-efficient building technologies’ at the Rajiv Gandhi Rural Housing Corporation Koushalya Shaale, Kengeri.
“A cross-section of those interested gather from across the country for the sessions — consisting of lectures, audiovisual presentations, hands-on training and interactive open-house discussions,” says M.R. Yogananda, who has a doctorate in Civil Engineering from IISc., who spearheads the training. Gramavidya, a non-profit society, promoted by a group of professionals and academicians, disseminates building technologies for sustainable livelihoods. The experts are pioneers in construction methods, who have popularised cost-effective technology throughout the country in renowned constructions like the Auroville.
“We need to disseminate as much information as possible. After all, even professionals who pass out of engineering colleges seem to be uninformed about constructions that are quake-resistant. Energy-intensive beam and column structures are not everything. Interactive sessions can re-invent forgotten vernacular approaches,” says Mr. Yogananda, who is also the consulting engineer of Mrinmayee, offering research and lab-testing facilities for stabilised mud-blocks.
In the mid-1980’s Mr. Yogananda’s house in Jayanagar, built with stabilised mud blocks, became a curious model for people to “wait and test it out in all seasons” as the fear of going in for mud construction was mocked at. No sooner, the house was projected as India’s example of mud revival at the Festival of France in HUDCO’s national seminar. “My house is nearly 30-years-old now, and can go on for generations with its earthy sheen,” says Mr. Yogananda.
For details, 26582970 / 94489 26442 / gramavidya@gmail.com
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Bangalore / by Ranjani Govind / Bangalore – August 21st, 2014
It looks like Basavanagudi is lucky to have a good water table with a lot of open wells capable of providing water to its residents right through the year.
The Indian Institute of World Culture is located in the locality of Basavanagudi, one of the oldest layouts formed in the city in the 1890s. The road on which the building is situated is called the B.P. Wadia Road and is named after the founder of the IIWC, which was established in 1945. There is an excellent library for adults and for children on the rather large campus with the typical old style Bangalore building. Many old timers come to listen to lectures organised in the evenings on various topics. I was there to speak on the culture and tradition of the open well in India.
Since I was early I wandered about the premises speaking to the person looking after the garden and the premises in general. Casually I asked him if there was a well in the area. To my surprise not only did he take me and show me a functioning well but also assured me that the water was crystal clear and sweet.
The well, safely enclosed in a pumping room, dates at least to the 1940s and has been supplying water unfailingly ever since. Devaiah also told me about a large stone lined and stepped open well next to the building which was also there for long. It has now been filled up and a multi-storeyed apartment has come in its place. The apartment has drilled a borewell to supplement its water needs.
Two recharge wells
The Institute has done a nice thing for the well. It has taken all the rooftop rainwater from the two large building blocks on its premises and put it into two recharge wells 10 ft. deep. This ensures that the entire rainwater goes into the aquifer, thus enhancing groundwater levels.
In front of the Institute is the famous M.N. Krishna Rao Park. Here also is a water reservoir of the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB). This reservoir is filled daily from waters of the Cauvery a 100 km. away and 300 metres below the city. Ironically it also probably sits on a shallow aquifer with a high groundwater table that it ignores.
The area now known as Gandhi Bazaar was built upon a tank called Karanji Tank. This is close to the Institute. On the other end, not far away, is the Lalbagh Lake. Hyder Ali began the famous Lalbagh gardens with three wells for irrigation, says the traveller and chronicler Buchanan. It looks like Basavanagudi is lucky to have a good water table with a lot of open wells capable of providing water to its residents right through the year.
It only remains that we remember the well as a source of good and cheap water, that we protect and preserve the catchment so as not to pollute the resource and that we enhance it through rainwater harvesting measures. Areas such as these should be designated as groundwater sanctuaries and the groundwater legislation used to sustainably maintain that most precious of all resources for this city — water.
As a famous writer once said, this is a fight between memory and forgetfulness. The memory of the well must be retained and must be integrated with modern water needs but in ecological fashion.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> Habitat / by S. Vishwanath / August 08th, 2014
While the animal adoption scheme of Sri Chamarajendra Zoological Gardens has become a big hit among animal lovers, the University of Mysore is mulling over initiating ‘Plant Adoption’ programme in a bid towards nature conservation.
The green friendly plans in the making is part of the Green Campus programme undertaken by the university under the University for Potential Excellence. The previous UPA government had allocated Rs one crore for the plantation drive, and the varsity had received Rs 50 lakh, said, Prof V Ravishankar Rai, Coordinator of the programme.
Rai said that through the Plant Adoption programme, the varsity wanted to involve youngsters, especially students and general public to keep the green cover intact, and also enhance the same with exotic and ornamental plants.
The varsity will provide the sapling for free, and also the space at its 700 acre odd campus comprising Manasagangotri (PG campus), Maharaja’s College and Yuvaraja’s College, he added. He also said that people will be allowed to bring saplings of their own choice. “To develop a bonding towards the nature, they will have to nurture the plants on their own,” said Rai.
A similar endeavour has been taken up at Tumkur University as part of the curriculum. A student who successfully nurtures the plant will be given bonus marks. Similar activities have also been undertaken at a larger scale in several foreign universities, said Rai.
As part of the green drive, works were underway to develop gardens both with natural and mexican grass, besides planting flower bearing and fruit bearing saplings to develop the food chain for birds and flies.
In the last three years around 5,000 saplings have been planted in the campus by the Horticulture department of the varsity. Under the recent programme, 1,500 of the total 2,000 saplings have already planted. On Friday, the planting exercise was completed in the area surrounding the main building of University College of Fine Arts.
source: http://www.deccanherald.com / Deccan Herald / Home> District / by Sreekantswamy B / Mysore – DHNS, August 08th, 2014
This innovator made the solar lamp a vehicle not just for electricity, but for education and independence.
Harish Hande visits Rosamma Vergies in Vandse village, Karnataka. Her home is fitted with a two-light solar system. Photo: Gireesh GV
Freedom from darkness | Harish Hande
Harish Hande doesn’t care about electrifying India, he wants the solar lamp to transform this country. Of course he was pleasantly surprised when newly appointed Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he would back the growth of solar power so that every household in India has at least one lamp by 2019, but Hande has also observed, for the last 15 years or so, that the ministry of new and renewable energy unfailingly gets a new secretary every six months. “Some don’t feel it’s an attractive post, some are quickly shifted, some retire,” he says with the air of a veteran who has figured out how to make things work despite policymakers.
But these are all relatively minor niggles. Hande, 47, won the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2011 because the ideas at Selco (Solar Electric Light Company—India), the solar energy equipment supplier company he co-founded in 1994, shine brighter than the lights it sells to the poor.
Take, for instance, Selco’s Light For Education project whose participants include around 30,000 children in Karnataka. Solar panels are installed on school premises and the battery, about the weight of a lunch box, is given to children. Children charge the batteries when they come to school. If they don’t come to school, there’s no light at home. “We stole the idea from the midday meals scheme,” says Hande. Stole and innovated.
Or the way Selco tackled the unique problem faced by a community of poor drum-makers in Bangalore. They were willing to pay for solar power, but they had one condition. They were often evicted, with only 15-20 minutes to gather their belongings. Could Selco design a system they could run with? No problem, a design school graduate who works at Selco conjured up a solar system on a cart.
Around 1.2 billion of the world’s population doesn’t have access to reliable electricity, and 400 million of these people live in India. Hande, who jokes that while growing up, his bread and butter came from a coal-fired plant in Rourkela (his father worked in power distribution at the Steel Authority of India), understood early that coal and gas wouldn’t be enough to meet India’s growing energy needs.
Yet, as an energy engineering student at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, and a doctoral student at the University of Massachusetts, US, Hande’s interest in solar was restricted to its supply security dynamic (the sun as a source of energy is limitless) and its environmental impact. Until a visit to the Dominican Republic in 1991 taught him a new lesson in thermodynamics. He saw the poor paying for solar lights and realized that renewable energy could be a catalyst for social change. So he spent the next two years in Sri Lanka and India—in darkness.
He took time off to see how communities in both these countries lived without electricity. “I realized I didn’t know what happens after 6pm. We were just making decisions based on Excel sheets,” he says. He learnt a few things: The moment you don’t know a language (Sinhalese), the artificial hierarchies of a formal education crumble and you are treated like anyone else; none of his formal education was useful, except perhaps the confidence he had gained by living in a hostel. In Sri Lanka especially, communities came together after dark, usually in Buddhist temples, to vent their frustrations; in India, the lost time was usually spent in isolation and the kerosene lamp made people even more depressed. “It was my most efficient period of time, I joke,” he says. That’s also probably when he realized that the poor don’t want sympathy. They want partners and collaborators.
He worries about the hierarchies he believes English-speaking India imposes on the rest of the country. He knows he may not be able to influence the thinking of a top dog at a Bangalore-based research firm who asks him how he ever manages to have “intellectual discussions” in rural India. Or the suit who eagerly shares that his children “teach” their rural counterparts every weekend. But he hopes he can someday convince urban children to partner with fellow Indians who don’t speak their lingo. “How do I tell kids that we are all part of the same society? That they need to learn from each other to create some sort of social equity? How to make kids interested in solving problems?”
Selco gets hundreds of internship applications from masters’ and PhD students every year but very few are Indians. Of the 300 applications last year, five were from this country. “I’ve now resorted to guilt-tripping parents and students when I speak to them. In the next 10 years if you complain that Americans and Europeans know more about India than you do, then you are to blame, I tell them,” Hande says.
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“How do I tell kids that we are all part of the same society? That they need to learn from each other to create some sort of social equity?” _____________________________________________
At Selco at least, they try to break these barriers. Nearly 85% of Selco’s employees, including chief operating officer Mohan Hegde (a practising folk artist on weekends), come from rural India. Hegde and K. Revathi, president, have been running the company since 1 June when Hande retired as managing director to take charge of the Selco Foundation, the company’s think tank. All the brainstorming for solutions and innovations to help fight poverty takes place at the foundation. The business side executes the ideas and the company’s incubation cell teaches entrepreneurs how to replicate these successes across India (four projects are already under way in Manipur, Rajasthan, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh; Selco is helping 25 more entrepreneurs raise funds).
Formal qualifications are not a prerequisite for any job at Selco. Twenty-eight-year-old Raghu, who greets me when I arrive and gets us tea at the Selco office in Bangalore, started out as a driver and now handles administrative duties. “He’s going to be a branch manager by the time he’s 32. That’s our goal for him,” says Hande. In rural areas they joke about Selco’s hires: Are you part of the laptop or the non-laptop crowd?
Hande checks all the boxes of someone who truly believes in sustainability. He doesn’t own any asset, he says he has about three-four pants and shirts, he borrows his father’s 1994 Maruti 800 when he needs a car, and his daughter Adhishri was 8 when she first started saying: “Is it needed or is it wanted?”
He got his cues from mentors like Neville Williams, his co-founder and a solar energy pioneer who made it to the CIA watch list after a trip to Vietnam to protest the “American War”; from photographer Jon Naar, who was a British spy in World War II; and from Paul Maycock, who predicted way back that the cost of producing solar energy would plunge by 2015. “These are guys who talked about sustainability in a very different manner. I miss their passion. Now you go to a meeting and it’s all about ties and suits.”
Hande sees the poor as asset creators, and not as a bottom of the pyramid sales opportunity. “Don’t sell to the poor. That’s our fundamental rule. And if you’re selling to the poor, make sure that the value you’re giving to the poor is much more than the monetary value they give you back,” he says.
So when Selco representatives found that 32 Sidi families in rural Karnataka spent more money annually on candles, kerosene and to charge their mobile phones than it would cost to set up a simple solar system, they had to fix this. No bank was willing to lend the money to these families, so Selco offered a 100% guarantee on their behalf. Six months later, the bank reduced this guarantee to 20% as the payments were regular. “The best response was from the Sidis,” says Hande. “They said, light is great but once the solar loan is done, I will take a loan for a sewing machine.” They had become bankable.
source: http://www.livemint.com / Live Mint & The Wall Street Journal / Home> Lounge> Business of Life> Indulge / Home -Leisure / Priya Ramani / Saturday – August 09th, 2014
Even in the highly commercialised old Pete area of Bangalore, there remain some pockets of greenery that provide some fresh air to the locality. How did they survive? Here’s a study that explores reasons.
A sacred fig tree used as a place of worship. Pic: currentconservation.org
It is a common sight to see a tree protruding onto a pavement, often onto the street and sometimes even acting as a divider in the centre of the road. These are trees that have survived the axe-happy city-planning authorities just by their nature of being classified culturally as Sacred Trees.
Divya Gopal, Harini Nagendra elaborate on the importance of these trees and the reasons they have survived the onslaught of development in the city, in an article, Sacred trees in the urban landscape of Bangalore, India, published in Current Conservation, Maria Tengö.
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About the authors
Maria Tengö is a researcher at Stockholm Resilience Centre and co-theme leader of the Stewardship theme. Divya Gopal is a researcher at the Institute of Ecology, Technische Universität, Berlin. Harini Nagendra is Professor at School of Development, Azim Premji University, Bangalore.
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Sacred trees include sacred fig or peepal (Ficus religiosa), neem tree (Azadirachta indica), coconut tree (Cocos nucifera), banyan (Ficus benghalensis), Indian blackberry (Syzygium cumini), banni (Prosopis cineraria) and bael (Aegle marmelos). These trees are found around temples, heritage sites or the Ashwath Kattes and often as a single tree or group of trees on roadsides and other areas.
Sacred figs are tall, with huge trunk areas and large canopies. One can see sacred figs growing even in crevices of buildings! They have many medicinal properties and are biodiversity hotspots nurturing insects, birds, squirrels, bats and monkeys.
What is Ashwatha Katte?
The Ashwath Katte is an area with a slightly raised platform, generally with sacred fig (Ficus religiosa) and neem tree (Azadirachta indica) planted together under which one often finds idols of serpent gods. Other sacred species, specifically the Ficus species, may also be found in a Katte.
The authors had done a sample survey to map the tree cover of the Pete in Bengaluru – the quadrangle from Town Hall to Briand Square to Tank Bund Road to Avenue Road. Established in the 16th century, the Pete was the city centre and hub of commercial commercial activity that was interlaid with residential layouts. Today the Pete that has undergone several political, social, economic and geographic changes appears congested to us. However a small numbers of trees were found to be surviving – most of them sacred trees, predominantly sacred figs forming tiny islands of green!
Places of urban greenery remaining in old Bangalore Pete area. Pic: currentconservation.org
Slum settlements were other areas where there was a large presence of sacred trees, here the area around the trees were multifunctional in nature. In addition to being worshipped these were hotspots of social activities, livelihood activities like selling flowers and vegetables and the canopies were playgrounds for children.
The article also elaborates on the importance, biodiversity values, cultural and religious beliefs and medicinal values around the various sacred trees, that maybe the reason they have survived in the city. For example, peepal tree is a symbol of fertility among the majority of locals.
Clue for BBMP on greening the city?
As the city continues to lose its green cover and the authorities take up greening drives, wrong choices of trees are often made. However, sacred trees, heritage trees and other culturally protected trees have so far managed to resist the pressures of urbanisation.
As the authors point out, these examples can help BBMP learn how to design parks and green spaces that engage people in their protection and management – for a ‘green infrastructure’ of trees, parks, and other green spaces is required to sustain our well-being.
Cultural ecosystems across the world are some of the best-protected areas, securing biodiversity values as well as spiritual and other cultural values for humans. If we can recognise such values and practices that protect trees, we can better secure pockets of nature!
