Tenth of tree per person in Ahmedabad

Ahmedabad: Green cover was sorely missed by Amdavadis when the temperature crossed all previous records to touch 48C on Thursday. With the sun beating down mercilessly, pedestrians looked for tree cover in vain. In contrast, Gandhinagar which saw a similar spike in mercury level had more people out on streets because of a larger green canopy overhead.
The blistering heat in Ahmedabad has made people acutely aware of the diminishing green cover. As per a treecount conducted by the social forestry department, there are only 11 trees per 100 people in Ahmedabad city according to which less than one-tenth of a tree is available per person. In Ahmedabad district too there is less than one tree per person. This underlines an acute need for the urban civic bodies to take immediate steps to make cities greener.
Sources said that green cover of the city at present is just 4.66% of its geographical area. “Ideally, a city should have a green canopy that covers at least 15% of its geographical area,” said an official of the social forestry department.
A senior official of social forestry department said that a fresh tree census in the urban bodies is due. “The count is more likely to reveal that the number of trees has further gone down,” the source said. He pointed out that in Ahmedabad city which is spread over 46,985 hectare area has only 6.18 lakh trees while the city has a population of 55.71 lakh. This means, said the official, that there are almost nine persons per tree.
Sources in the department said that in the past few years tree-plantation drives have not been taken up. “Instead, in the past couple of years trees have been cut in the eastern parts of the city where the major real estate development is taking place. In the western parts too tree felling has been rampant in the outskirts,” said an official.
Social forestry department officials said that in Gujarat, though the state government has been claiming that the tree cover outside the forest area has increased, forest survey of India (FSI) data tells a different story - in 2001, Gujarat’s tree cover, outside forest areas, was 10,586 sq km, this fell to 8,358 sq km in 2013. The 2015 FSI report suggests that tree cover further dropped to 7,914 sq. km. This implies a drop of nearly 2,672 sq. km, or 25.25% in the last 14 years.
Beena Shah a resident of Satellite, said: “Tree cover in the city has steadily decreased. When the temperature increased to 48, I realized how important it is to have trees around. Without tree cover, pedestrians and commuters are exposed to the sweltering heat if they need to venture outside even for tasks like changing a flat car tyre.”