Are you serious about preserving green cover?

The High Court-appointed tree committee, which visited the transplantation sites recently, saw that out of the 1,060 trees transplanted, 680 were dead

A day after this paper's prominent report that over 60 per cent of transplanted trees cut at Aarey Milk Colony for the Metro car shed are dead, it has met with responses which are a mix of outrage and so-why-are-you-surprised sentiment.

The High Court-appointed tree committee, which visited the transplantation sites recently, saw that out of the 1,060 trees transplanted, 680 were dead.

The trees were transplanted by the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Limited (MMRCL) at seven different locations inside Aarey itself.

It is disappointing that there is such a low survival rate for transplanted trees. This deepens the fissures of mistrust between people and authorities. The cleaves have existed, but when authorities claim trees will be transplanted, you see people accepting, somewhat grudgingly, that 'wrongs' are righted this way. Then, you have depressing statistics that show why those 'for' and 'against' continue to be at such odds.

The transplantation needs expertise, and we need a number of persons with knowledge about transplantation on the panel. Reports state that transplantation is a science and it has to be done correctly so that trees may survive. If done incorrectly, the trees will simply die, as they have in this case.

Rope in advisors and botany professors from colleges, even bring in foreign experts if need be. This is imperative if you want to show that your intent to preserve greenery or to strike a balance between infrastructure and environment is serious and genuine.

The shockingly high number of dead trees is going to deepen divisions over other projects. With so much development going on all around the city, this can only be a bad thing.

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