The Indian  Express   24.08.2012

Civic body to begin tree census from next week

After a gap of four years, a census on the number of trees in the city will be conducted by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s gardens department starting next week.

According to Superintendent of the gardens department, Kamalashankar Yadav, the census, to be held across the island city, the eastern suburbs, and the western suburbs, will now incorporate more comprehensive details and possibly revised numbers from previous records.

A senior BMC official said the methodology by which the trees are surveyed will also be changed. “During the 2008 census, there was a lot of controversy about the numbers, with allegations that they are inflated. We are going to revisit the trees, revise the criteria for calculation and possibly revise the numbers too.”

According to the 2008 census, Mumbai has a total of 1.9 million trees, of which 1.03 million were recorded on private land.

“The 2008 census does not have details on the new and old trees and other pieces of information useful for keeping track. We are now going to look at how many trees are taller than 50 ft, what is the age of every tree and how many medicinal trees are there in the city,” said Yadav.

The department will also check the condition of trees. “We have had an increasing number of tree falling incidents in the past couple of years, so we will check the status of existing trees and how many of them are in danger of falling,” said Yadav. The department is also discussing ways to preserve palm trees and datefruit trees. “These trees are over 20 ft in height and when they fall, they are uprooted so it is difficult to carry out re-plantation,” said Yadav. The department is also said to be looking at newer technologies for solutions to check unlawful felling of trees.