The most worrying aspect of the government plan to cut down 1,200 fully grown trees along the Ring Road is its breathtaking lack of vision. For whoever planned the mass felling, the logic, it seems, was pretty straightforward: since these trees were ‘hindering’ road expansion, they had to be chopped down. It does not seem to have occurred to them that these trees take decades to grow to their full size, and cutting them down without any plan to replace them could irrevocably scar the already hideous (and hazardous) concrete jungle that is modern-day Kathmandu. If they had taken a little time to put heads together, a model of road expansion that retained existing trees could have been worked out. The jacarandas and mimosas dotting the Ring Road add the much-needed aesthetic value to an otherwise drab city, but more than that, they serve as an important and increasingly indispensible source of fresh air for city dwellers chocking on noxious fumes from polluting vehicles.
It is just pre-monsoon, and already the roads of Kathmandu are clogged with water after just an hour of heavy rainfall. Roadside trees could help absorb this water. Planting trees also makes business sense. With the surrounding trees gone, the thousands of businesses along the Ring Road could suffer. Studies have shown that consumers tend to shun business areas that are devoid of any greenery. There are other unexpected consequences of absence of greenery in urban setting. Crimes could spike: presence of trees cut crime rates by as much as seven percent. Road accidents could go up as well, since roadside trees also act as ‘guides’ for motorists. The chirpy birds could disappear: around 100 species nest in the trees along the 27-km stretch of Ring Road, including the famous cuckoo. [break]
The shortsightedness of a plan to widen roads by felling trees is particularly shocking at a time when even government bodies have started coming up with innovative measures to add greenery to the valley. For instance, the Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) has made it mandatory for any new building in the city to create space for at least two trees in the construction plan. The goal is to create little urban oases as a replacement for the steadily declining greenery inside the Valley. According to KMC, while 33 percent of the Valley was covered by trees in 1990, by 2000 the green cover had plummeted to 17 percent. Most recent estimates put it at under 10 percent. Kathmandu, home to 2.51 million people according to 2011 census, witnessed a 60 percent population growth over the last decade. There is likely to be similar population growth in the next decade, putting great pressure on available resources and further straining the fragile environment (and burnt-out lungs). To cope with this impending human bulge, astute and environmentally-friendly solutions will have to be found. Merely expanding roads to adjust more and more polluting vehicles while taking no measures to clean up the atmosphere is a deeply misguided move. But there is a solution, which can be implemented one tree at a time.
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