The govt’s Tree Transplantation Policy will damage ecology and our city

Red alerts about the likely failure of this plan are abundant and are common knowledge . We hear about the impossibility of transplanting old trees, a hallmark of the capital and its climate warriors. The plan’s 80% survival target has been called out as something designed to fail.

The Delhi Government’ new Tree Transplantation Policy hopes to save existing trees instead of cutting them down for new projects.

A man with his pet dog walk next to a tree at Carter Road, Bandra in Mumbai.(Pratik Chorge/HT Photo)

Red alerts about the likely failure of this plan are abundant and are common knowledge . We hear about the impossibility of transplanting old trees, a hallmark of the capital and its climate warriors. The plan’s 80% survival target has been called out as something designed to fail.

But there’s more. First, would you like the state to take away trees from your neighbourhood on the pretext that they would be planted elsewhere? Which neighbourhood doesn’t need trees?

The policy isn’t about the question of saving trees, but the loss of several hundred trees from a neighbourhood. What kind of conditions will people have to endure?

For sure, a hotter micro-climate and more dust would become the order of the day. The poorest in the city will experience unbearable heat.

Birds, including those from exotic species, will lose their unsubstitutable homes. Are these benefits or losses?

Second, examining the Masterplan 2021, I couldn’t identify spaces where the trees could be transplanted. Not all open spaces are ecologically viable for planting non-native trees anyway. Unless the Delhi government stops work on all upcoming buildings and knocks down built infrastructure, I don’t see where thousands of unwanted trees can be dumped in the what has been called transplantation.

Charles Darwin, and even Carolus Linnaeus, spoke of the inter-dependence of species. The Delhi government overturns these giants of modern science. Nor does it trust Indian culture, rich with odes to symbiotic affections. Delhi (and India) must nurture trees in situ. It must build with them intact.

The writer is the founder and director of the Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group