If you are on social media platforms you must have heard
about the environmental activists protests against tree cutting in Mumbai’s
Aarey Colony area for Mumbai Metro project.
What is happening
Mumbai Metro is an ambitious project which is expected to
change the way of life for Mumbai residents for the better. I have lived in
Mumbai for 4 years and I have seen that the life of a middle class person remains
the same year after year and decade after decade. The city is so much crowded
that new development is too challenging. Every time there are rains the city
comes to standstill for some time. People are habituated to tolerate so much
trouble, much more than people from any other city (I have lived in 11 cities
so far in India). Mumbai’s life line is the local trains and the journey is
very unsafe. Every day several people fell down from the open gates of local
trains and are killed. In this context, Mumbai Metro will surely be a game
changer.
Protest against tree felling
Total 2646 trees are affected (461 will be transplanted and
2185 will be cut) in the Aarey colony area. But Mumbai Metro firm had already
decided to plant 6 times more trees to compensate for the loss. You can read below
news:
Mumbai Metro firm MMRC begins planting 20,900 trees in city
Six times more trees will be planted, assures Metro
body
Political angle
The tree felling is happening at the election time. Therefore
there are high chances that they protests against the Metro project are
politically funded by opposition parties. The fact that this is election time
is known to the government too. Both government and Metro planners would have
thought about alternative routes since everyone knows that cutting trees will
be sure controversy. Govt is not stupid to do this at election time unless it
was an absolute necessity.
Do you know that India
is turning Greener?
Earlier this year, NASA released a report mentioning that
India had contributed to turn our earth greener.
Since the turn of the new millennium, the planet's green leaf
area has increased by 5%, or over two million square miles. That's an area
equivalent to the sum total of the Amazon rainforests, NASA says.
A third of the leaf increase is attributable to China and
India, due to the implementation of major tree planting projects alongside a
vast increase in agriculture.
China and India account for one-third of the greening, but
contain only 9% of the planet's land area covered in vegetation -- a surprising
finding, considering the general notion of land degradation in populous
countries from overexploitation," Chi Chen, the study's lead author and a
graduate researcher at Boston University's Department of Earth and Environment,
said in a statement.
India has contributed a further 6.8% rise in green leaf area,
with 82% from croplands and 4.4% from forests.
Why tree felling should
be tolerated
1.
Mumbai
Metro is a vital project which will improve the living standards of common people
immensely
2.
Mumbai
Metro project will avoid daily accidental deaths due to unsafe travels in local
trains
3.
Overall
green cover in India is already having an increasing trend and India is helping
our planet turn greener with more tree cover
4.
Mumbai
Metro also has big environmental gains because it will avoid lots of vehicles
on the road and hence air pollution will reduce overall
5.
Metro
Project is already planting 6 times more trees than those being affected
6.
461
trees are being “transplanted” which shows the seriousness of Metro project
planners
Due to above reasons, I argue that we should allow the
project to go ahead along with the tree cutting to happen as planned.
- Rahul Tiwary
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