https://epaper.timesgroup.com/Olive/ODN/TimesOfIndia/shared/ShowArticle.aspx?doc=TOIGO%2F2018%2F07%2F07&entity=Ar01000&sk=BFF7D7C3&mode=text
A few days ago, the award-winning poet and author Sumana Roy created a flurry of disquiet and discussion on Facebook when she posted, “Do we think of killing humans and replacing them by giving birth to humans elsewhere? Why do we apply a similar logic to trees? That we'll kill a hundred trees in Region X and plant 100 saplings in Region Y to maintain the 'balance'. I've said this before and will say it again and again and again. Yes, we need trees for utilitarian reasons (air, water, etc), but do trees not have the right to live even if they are of no use to us? Are fundamental rights only for humans?” Roy’s sentiments struck a chord in this moment that is full of bad news for trees in India. There have been anguished protests in Delhi after the forest department of the national capital was found to have given permission to cut down at least 44,833 trees over the past seven years. In response, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs set aside plans to hack away another 14,000 trees in the next few months (although 1500 have already been sacrificed). It escaped no one’s attention this tense struggle took place even as the entire belt of North Indian states gasped under a deadly vortex of dust, heat and humidity which made simple breathing difficult, and spiked particulate matter in the air far past emergency levels. All this is to be expected, with much worse on the way. According to the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) in New Delhi, nearly 30% of India’s land mass is undergoing desertification (defined as “a type of land degradation in which a relatively dry land region becomes increasingly arid, typically losing its bodies of water as well as vegetation and wildlife”). Across the country, trees are being cut down, the vital upper layers of soil being excavated for construction and road-building, and water levels continue to plummet dangerously both above and below the earth’s surface. Incredibly irresponsibly, India sucks up and uses more groundwater each year than China and the USA combined. When he was minister for environment, Prakash Javadekar acknowledged the scale of the problem. He said, “Land is becoming barren, degradation is happening. A lot of areas are on the verge of becoming deserts but it can be stopped.” The problem is that India has not demonstrated any capacity for stopping, delaying, or anything like reversal of desertification. On the contrary, the CSE says 26 of 29 states are experiencing inexorable increases in the area of land being degraded. And 8 states are on the verge of outright castastrophe, as 40% to 70% of total surface is threatened. These are Rajasthan, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Nagaland, Tripura, and Goa. The shocking, shameful presence of India’s smallest state on this list of the nation’s most degraded underlines the cruel ironies underlying the comments of Nitin Gadkari on his most recent visit to Panaji last month. The union minister for road transport and highways has rammed through a series of massive, highly questionable road expansions at the cost of vital expanses of agricultural land and biodiversity. He said, “Many trees will be cut to widen the roads. But now, you get ‘ready-made’ trees, which are eight or nine years old. They can be planted and the highway can be made a ‘green’ one.” Besides stretching the use of “green” far past plausibility, Gadkari dealt a canard about the utility of transplantation (aka “readymade” trees). In fact, the native tropical trees of India have deep roots to seek out low water tables, and are resistant to growing back after being moved. Between 2011 and 2017, the Delhi forest department attempted to relocate 6041 trees. The survival rate was less than 20%. Gadkari is probably talking about ornamental trees, which can be shifted somewhat like house plants. But these subtract rather than contribute to a healthy ecosystem, and usually require copious amounts of water and fertilizer. They’re actually profoundly anti-environmental. It is an act of considerable hubris to defy the collected wisdom of the ancients. The earliest Jewish and Christian scriptures begins with the tree of life, which Islam also mentions as the symbol immortality. The Buddha attained enlightenment under a pipal tree. In this regard, the current ecocidal generation of Indian leaders would do especially well to remember the vedic Kalpavriksha, renowned for granting all wishes. Remove it, and all hope is lost.