Nature in the Garden City of Bengaluru once played a number of roles — biological, social and economic. Leaves, fruits, roots and bark were consumed for food and medicine. Nature was worshipped as the divine, and enjoyed for its aesthetic appeal. Biodiversity in all its variety — from trees and plants to monkeys, birds, frogs, snakes, insects, and even the shy, elusive slender loris — once thrived in the urban green spaces of Bengaluru. This has changed dramatically over the years.
Bengaluru’s home gardens are a good example of this change.
Once distinguished by an impressive diversity of plants with multiple uses such as coconut, tulasi, and shoeflower, many majestic old homes have given way to apartment complexes. Apartments do set aside spaces for green spaces, which drive up real estate value and attract residents. Yet, a relatively small set of species can be seen in apartment gardens, driven by the uniformity in preferences of builders. Ornamental species with multicoloured or showy leaves such as royal palm and heliconia are frequently encountered, while species with abundant flowers and fruits are typically discouraged.
Simplified palette
Managers and residents consider fruiting trees messy and problematic, anticipating fights over the rights to harvest fruits. The proliferation of apartments with their simplified focus on the aesthetic reduces the availability of flowers and fruits that provide food and nectar for butterflies, bees, ants and other insects, and birds and wildlife. Apartments gardens tend to use much more pesticide in contrast to home owners, who prefer organic gardens because they eat the food they grow.
Traditional home gardens thus supported much greater biodiversity than apartments with their new, simplified palette of species, and reduced cultural uses of biodiversity.
Similar changes are to be found in public spaces — streets and parks. Streets were once planted with a range of fruiting native trees such as the pipal and fig, tamarind, jackfruit, and mango.
Now, fruiting trees are avoided because of aesthetic concerns about the messiness of dealing with fallen fruits. Instead, streets are now planted with a relatively homogenous set of ornamental trees.
Diverse urban wildlife
K.R. Road, which once supported diverse urban wildlife with its dense canopy of banyan trees on either side, is now largely barren and devoid of biodiversity. Older parks such as the M.N. Krishna Rao Park in Basavanagudi contained a diverse array of large trees. Smaller, recent parks are typically intensively landscaped with manicured hedges and grassy lawns, and only a few occasional trees. Streets and parks once supported diverse uses, including the collection of dry twigs for firewood, leaves and seeds for medicine, grass for grazing material, fruits for consumption, and flowers for worship and adornment. Now, parks contain prominent signs warning against the collection of any material. Nature is only meant for viewing satisfaction.
In this process, across Bengaluru, we have increasingly simplified the palette of species from which we select, removing species that have any possibility of nuisance value.
Tall growing species are said to interfere with overhead wires. Trees with large canopies create problems for people who park cars on the road, who don’t want to risk the threat of falling branches. Species with deep and wide roots create a problem for underground pipes and cabling. Fruiting and profusely flowering trees create a mess on the road.
This leaves us with a handful of species from which to select. As a consequence, the once organic connect with nature that older residents of Bengaluru had, has given place to the purely aesthetic. In this crowded city, there is no space left for biodiversity.
(Harini Nagendra is a professor of Sustainability at Azim Premji University, and author of ‘Nature in the City: Bengaluru in the Past, Present and Future’.)
Instead of fruiting trees, streets are now planted with a homogenous set of ornamental trees
