The more-than-a-century-old wayside trees, most of them mango trees, on the Kattachira stretch of the Ettumanur-Pala road are once again in the news with the greens taking up the fight to protect them from the hawks who are making a concerted move to cut them down citing occurrence of accidents.
According to S. Ramachandran of the Meenachil Nadee Samrakshana Samithy, there had been an attempt of similar nature from interested parties in 2004, but that could be blocked through popular agitation.
The move was quashed by an order of the District Collector. The road is well-maintained and vehicles, especially two-wheelers, have the tendency to overspeed resulting in accidents. Many of them had hit these trees.
The trees were planted during the colonial period on either side of the then Athirampuzha- Poonjar road, he said. The stretch of road here was reclaimed from the low-lying marshy place on either side and is more than 30 metres wide. However, only less than a 10-metre wide stretch has been asphalted and used as road. The trees stand on either side of the road.
Mr. Ramachandran said there was enough space to develop a one-way system here by developing the puramboke land now lying idle as a road. “If we want to protect these trees, we have to sit together and find a scientific way to develop one-way system on this stretch. “There are nearly a dozen mango trees, half of them above 400 cm in girth, one them 470 cm,” he said and pointed out that there were other trees too by the wayside.
What was of concern is that the interested parties have succeeded in getting a resolution passed in the Kidangoor taluk sabha and the Kattachira ward sabha seeking cutting down of these trees.
The greens have called for a meeting of people on December 18 to commence a signature campaign for the protection of these magnificent grand old trees.
