From a barren piece of lifeless land to a thriving green hub of over 2,000 rare and important plant species, the transformation of the Biodiversity Park in the premises of RCD Hospital in Visakhapatnam is no less than a miracle. It is the most incredible ecological transformation that city has seen so far. All thanks to M Ram Murthy, a retired professor who along with his wife Mangathayi and a team of students, spearheaded the near-impossible task of creating a vibrant plant kingdom from a land mostly used to dump garbage. Their mission was to restore the lost native biodiversity of the region and also showcase the enigmas of the botanical world.
For more than a decade now, the Biodiversity Park is like a second home for Murthy who spends most of his time attending to the needs of the various plant species, some extremely rare and endangered, and nurturing them with utmost care. “This park is a temple for me where I worship the greens. Plants are living gods and without them there can be no life,” he says.
Humble beginnings
A professor of Zoology of BVK College and a marine biologist, Murthy first formed an environmental group called Penguin Nature Club in 2000 to inculcate the knowledge of Nature conservation in the young minds. Affiliated to the World Wildlife Fund for Nature – India, the club would conduct plantation programmes in various places across the city. A year later, he decided to focus on result-oriented work and formed the Dolphin Nature Conservation Society (DNCS), an NGO that eventually took up the task of creating the Andhra Pradesh’s first Biodiversity Park. “We were allotted 30 acres of land by the district administration. But we started with humble beginnings and developed the park over three acres of area. At that time there were no compound walls and the land was a cattle grazing site with debris all around,” recalls Murthy.
Rare species
Approximately four years since the plantation began in 2002 on the World Environment Day, the Biodiversity Park began to thrive and over the years it became home to over 2,000 different species of plants, 130 species of butterflies with more than 30 reported for the first time in Visakhapatnam district and a place that hosts all the botanical oddities found at the Botanical Garden in Kolkata. These include like the Mickey Mouse flower, Mad tree and the Holy Cross tree. Among several unique species nurtured by Murthy and his team is the one called Ginkgo biloba . “This is a living fossil and a rare gymnosperm that belongs to the age of the dinosaurs. Buddhist monasteries in China and Japan had it on their premises since it was considered a ‘sacred tree’. We have today two fully grown specimens of this rare plant that is said to have time-tested medicinal properties,” adds Murthy. Till about 2014, the park was maintained by DNCS with membership amount, meagre donations from Nature lovers and with Murthy contributing a major part of his salary towards its upkeep. Today, the park is maintained by Visakhapatnam Urban Development Authority in collaboration with DNCS. When Hudhud struck the city in October 2014, the park saw years of hard-work crumble under the humongous force of Nature. “The devastation was heartbreaking. We worked day and night over the next one year to give the park a second life,” he says.
Today, a symphonic twitter of birds and a colourful mosaic of rare plants and flowers greet visitors at the park. On most days, one would find Murthy checking on the plants in the mornings or evenings. On other days, he would be addressing big groups of students on plants at the Biodiversity Park, a place that has become a “living laboratory” for researchers all across the country. This year, three teams of foreign researchers from Hungary, UK and the US visited the park and interacted with DNCS members. This year, Murthy was a proud man as he and his team held the Biodiversity Conserver Award presented by the Andhra Pradesh State Biodiversity Board and more recently, a ‘Special Jury Award’ by the Andhra Pradesh Urban Greenery and Beautification Corporation.
