While the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) forest wing’s survey of trees in the city has made little progress on ground over the last three years, the Bengaluru Urban division of the Department of Forest has surveyed nearly one lakh trees in large tracts of land owned by the Government and those that are held privately.
S.S. Ravishankar, Deputy Conservator of Forests (Bengaluru Urban), told The Hindu that forest officials were undertaking the tree census without any assistance from any agency or organisation. An app that was developed to assist in the survey has been migrated to Karnataka State Remote Sensing Applications Centre (KSRSAC). “We collect a lot of data and this needs a separate server. Hence, it was decided to shift to KSRSAC,” he said.
The app is still only being used by the Forest Department and has not been opened up to the public just yet, as was envisaged earlier. Mr. Ravishankar said that it may take at least another year for the public to be given access to the app to input details of trees in their private properties.
Meanwhile, the BBMP forest wing is still waiting to sign a memorandum of understanding with the Department of Forestry, Gandhi Krishi Vigyan Kendra (GKVK), for the tree survey. There are an estimated two crore trees in Bengaluru.
BBMP’s Deputy Conservator of Forests Govindaraju told The Hindu that the civic body was at the stage of finalising the MoU with GKVK, University of Agricultural Sciences. “We have surveyed roadside trees and those in parks maintained by the BBMP. Once the MoU is finalised, the survey will be taken up in full swing,” he said.
Last year, the forest wing had submitted to the court that around 18,000 trees in public areas, such as roads and parks, had been surveyed. Nagarajaiah, HoD, Department of Forestry, GKVK, said that the decision on the MoU with BBMP is likely to be taken soon.
The BBMP initially tied up with the Institute of Wood Science and Technology (IWST), a wing of the Union Government’s Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education. It also gave an undertaking before the High Court of Karnataka, which is hearing a petition filed by the Bangalore Environment Trust and environmentalist D.T. Devare about the non-implementation of several provisions of the Karnataka Preservation of Trees Act, 1976. However, IWST had backed out citing lack of manpower and outbreak of COVID-19 due to which they were not able to get requisite number of volunteers for the census.
