Eight years after a World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) study found 149 tree species on the IIT Bombay campus in Powai, students have used the study as a reference point to label them. With some help from the campus nursery, National Service Scheme (NSS) student-members have identified over 200 trees belonging to 40 species, with labels tied to trunks that bear common and botanical names and what makes the tree special or useful.
NSS volunteers have also created a database for the trees with their exact location. “These are trees on one side of the main road on campus; that’s just 10% of the total campus area,” Yash Sanghvi, overall co-ordinator, NSS, IIT-B, says. The students now plan to go deeper into the campus to identify trees. “By a rough extrapolation, we need to cover at least 2,000 trees. The goal is to maintain green cover by getting students involved in plantation and actively participate in tree maintenance.”
During their initial study, the students came across the world’s tallest flowering tree and Tamil Nadu’s State tree. Some species were exotic (not native to the area), says Pratik Babhulkar, head, NSS Green Campus, IIT-B. “Either they were transplanted here, or someone took the effort to plant them.”
The students are also working on a project to increase butterfly diversity on campus by increasing host and nectar plants. “Work on the database is on, and we are planting saplings and trees sourced from the campus nursery,” he added. While they have been planning for labelling the trees since two weeks, the actual work took them four hours. Mr. Babhulkar said the labelling is likely to be completed by April.
Campus interest growing
The activity has generated a buzz on campus, with various departments taking interest and requests coming in from hostel councils for trees in their vicinity to be mapped and labelled. “I’ve spent three years on campus, but didn’t pay attention to the biodiversity. I thought all trees were similar. It’s fascinating to see that the campus is so rich in its variety of species,” Shreerang Kaore, a third year mechanical engineering student, says.
Mr. Sanghvi says the sports facility and students activity centre were next on the list for tree-mapping. Preservation, he said, was another important goal for this exercise. “From time to time, some trees have to be cut, either for security reasons or to create infrastructure; some don’t survive the monsoon.”
The WWF report titled ‘Study of Biodiversity of IIT Bombay Campus’ had also underlined the importance of preservation. According to it, damaging activities observed on campus included cutting of wood for fuel, dumping of plastic bags and bottles, liquor bottles strewn around in the vegetation, disposal of chemical waste and trapping of water birds. “The beautiful green campus has a lot of construction activity, which was disheartening... The construction of facilities is a necessary evil, but if this is done by considering the environmental status it will prove beneficial,” the report said.
The WWF team had recommended information panels for flora and fauna, which would “convert the entire campus into an environment and ecology learning laboratory”. It also called for regular nature trails for students, staff and their families, besides a student green squad to patrol and monitor the campus.
