A map to help you plant saplings in the right spot

Do you want to plant saplings in your city but don’t know where to do it?

A bunch of youngsters can tell you where exactly vacant spots are available, at least in three wards of the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike, through an online map (www.vruksha.com).

Four youngsters have mapped and documented 8,000 trees in Jayanagar, Byrasandra and Pattabhiramanagar as the first step towards fulfilling their dream of a greener Bengaluru. Trees have been felled for the Namma Metro project, flyovers, malls, offices, and homes. Over four years, the team has identified each tree in the three wards and marked its location on the online map.

Vijay Nishanth, founder of ‘Vruksha’, the tree-mapping project, and a former volunteer of the BBMP Forest Cell, said people talk about the depleting green cover but not about solutions. “The project aims to encourage people to plant saplings and know where to plant them.”

Another reason triggering the project is the BBMP’s “failure” to carry out tree census when the group suggested it. The Karnataka Preservation of Trees Act, 1976 states that the BBMP must conduct tree census every once in four years and then fell them. But the BBMP has been cutting trees without conducting the census, he pointed out.

S.G. Neginhal, a retired forest official, said, “It is useful if the study shows vacant spots where saplings can be planted. Once the sapling is planted, it is important to nurture it for at least three years.”