The Times of India  11.08.2010

MUMBAI: A fresh mapping of biodiversity at Byculla zoo has confirmed the worst fears of those opposing the revamp of one of the largest breathing space in the city. Believe it or not, the BMC had, for all these years, left out as many as 30 species of plants and 410 trees while recording the green growth of Veermata Jijamata Udyan, ostensibly because they could not identify the flora.

Botanist Dr Marselin Almeida who holds an honorary post at the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) and who has been appointed by the civic body to conduct the survey said the list was still being prepared and the report would be submitted to the civic body within a week.

"I am not surprised at all. The tree surveys have always been riddled with errors, complete with reports with contradictory data. Besides totalling errors, the BMC has also submitted wrong maps showing trees in places where there was none,'' said Hutokshi Rustomfram of the Save Rani Baug Committee.

The BMC had, so far, claimed that there were 2,800 trees of 256 species in the zoo. However, officials conducting the survey said in their report that there were actually 3,210 trees. The list is likely to grow longer as about 75 trees are yet to be identified.

According to an official from the BMC's gardens department, mistakes cropped up also because the surveyor did not pay attention to accuracy. "The new report says the BMC had left out 410 trees from the list, simply because it couldn't identify those trees. The list could be slighltly longer as we are yet to identify around 75 trees. Most of them are various species of palm, but as they are not flowering or bearing fruit at the moment, we will take a while more to identify them,'' the official said.

Experts have also noticed that several of the trees have been wrongly identified and concurring with them, the gardens department official also added that 90% of the names were misspelt. He added that a lot of greenhouse plants, including herbs and climbers, had also been left out.

The Rs 433 crore Byculla zoo makeover proposal has been pending with the Mumbai Heritage Conservation Committee (MHCC) for approval for more than a year. The committee has asked the civic body to rework the design so that no tree is damaged and the zoo's botanical garden is retained. The team appointed including botanists were given the task of including, identifying, naming, listing and locating a variety of trees and other floral species in the 53-acre zoo premise with the help of GPS mapping. The decision was taken after environmentalists protested the revamp of the zoo fearing that a substantial amount of green cover would be lost in the process.