Feedback on airport tree-corridor idea

Mrs Janet Yegneswaran of the Tree-for-free trust doesn’t share my enthusiasm for a green corridor to the Bangalore international airport. “Sorry, it’s not possible,” she wrote back, saying she has enough hassles already, of having to deal with the municipal authorities for providing tree guards to her roadside saplings. Planting saplings along airport highway entail large scale maintenance; would require lots of tree-guards (which, incidentally, cost more than saplings). And who takes responsibility for watering the saplings?

Such was her response when I wrote to Janet after reading about her initiative to get people to plant saplings to mark special events in life – birthday, wedding anniversary, tribute a parents, graduation, getting a job. A California based NRI sponsored planting of 21 saplings in a city park to mark her three-week vacation in Bangalore. This triggered an idea – if everyone who goes abroad the first time – students, IT professional, parents of NRIs – were to sponsor a roadside sapling each to mark the occasion, we could have a green corridor along the road to Devanahalli airport before long.

Janet’s current concerns are about saving the saplings that are planted; about watering them regularly. The municipal corporation staff is required to water roadside plants at least once a week. Without providing for manpower and resources for proper after-care of planted saplings, there is little point in thinking big, according to Janet.

The point is, Janet may not be aware that her tree-sponsorship idea has sparks of morphing into a civic movement. I recall my own skepticism about Exnora, when its founder, Mr M B Nirmal, wanted me to do a story about it in the Times of India. This was in late 80s; and Mr Nirmal, then a Chennai bank official, had returned from a posting in Hong Kong . His idea was that those of us who have been exposed to life and living abroad, could contribute to raising the quality of civic life in Chennai.

Mr Nirmal and his small band of like-minded Chennai residents, all of them with experience of living abroad, started their civic initiative in T Nagar area, under an NGO forum called EXNORA (which stood for excellent+novel+radical). He sought media support and that was how we got in touch. I appreciated Mr Nirmal’s efforts, but dismissed it as a story for a city paper. I thought it was too ‘local’ for the national daily (of which I was then the Chennai correspondent). I had failed to see the spark in the EXnora idea, which has now grown into a country-wide residents driven civic movement.

I don’t know if Mr Nirmal had himself visualized the wider potentials of his local initiative. Janet’s tree-sponsorship idea may be another idea waiting to become a movement, in the Exnora fashion. Speaking of tree-planting I once read that at Surathkal they have a tradition of asking every NIE student to plant a sapling on the campus before graduation. Surathkal campus is now green with trees planted by seniors years ago.

The charitable trust founded by Janet has planted over 1,500 saplings in the last two years. Bangaloreans who wish to see a touch of green in their neighborhood can call Janet – 9845449703 - to have their wish fulfilled. The trust gets calls from residents all over the city, wanting trees planted on their street. Her organizational and other resources are stretched out to the full. Janet says her trust does not collect money from people for planting saplings in their neighborhood. Her resources come from individual donations and corporate sponsors.

As a hands-on person Janet wants to spend all her time and energy in planting saplings. She leaves strategy and promotional work to volunteers. Not being in on the Internet and networking Janet relies on volunteers to answer e-mail and maintain their website which could do with updates on a regular basis. Those of us who wish to take Janet’s the tree-sponsorship idea to a higher, wider and more institutionalized level would first need to convince Janet that thinking big could, at times, lead to big things; that an airport green corridor under Janet’s tree-sponsorship programme has potential to become a working model for citizen-corporate-government partnership in our common endeavor to see a greener Bangalore.

Evidently, it is a task that calls for concerted efforts. The tree-for-free trust could do with networking of like-minded folks with a Bangalore connection. And the Bangalore-connected are there the world over. Each of us who access Praja-Bangalore could tap our contacts - in SiliconIndia and LinkedIn - to spread the word and seek support and guidance from networking professionals. They could help Janet devise appropriate software for registering tree sponsors online; to enable then access to data on available space for tree-plantation; to maintain online inventory of saplings, their variety;to maintain brief notes on sponsors and status of saplings they planted. Over a period the tree-for-free trust could build a database for a tree census in the city. Those who wish ro contact Janet could e-mail - rajanetyeg@gmail.com

Cross-posted in my other blog this item evoked a comment from Mr V Kuppan of Exnora who suggested, 'why don’t we try to entrust a stretch by stretch of the corridor to IT industries and other MNCs to plant trees and maintain'.

Another comment, by Mr Narendra Shenoy, related to tree-guards - " These are usually fabricated out of mild steel and then painted. All of which is quite expensive. If the purpose is to protect the sapling from goats and cows, a cheaper one can be fabricated out of bamboo slats and grass ropes. Eco friendly. Inexpensive. Effective. Employment generating.