Ahmedabad city got a unique green feather on its cap
recently when a tree count taken up by the Municipal Corporation has revealed
that the city has the highest number of big and old trees in the state. The
tree count recorded 6.18 lakh trees in the city, among which 22,880 were big trees.
Ahmedabad City: A Panoramic View (source: WikiMedia Commons) |
A tree, according to the counting procedure used, is
considered big when the girth size of their trunk is more than 200 cm. Thus 3.7
percent of the total trees in the city turned out to be big trees. This is a
far better amount than that of India’s greenest city Gandingagr.
However, splitting up the total number of big trees in the
city, it was found that 14150 trees marked in the counting had a girth size
between 200 cm to 250 cm, while 6420 trees were sized between 251 to 300 centimeters.
There was 2310 tress with a girth size of over 300 cm, owing to their old age.
The counting also found that the average tree size in Ahmedabad
is bigger than other cities of Gujarat. The tree count has recorded 33619 tress
from all the eight municipal corporations of Gujarat. While in all other municipal
corporations, trees with more than 200 centimeter of girth size constitute only
1.31 percent of the total trees.
The ancient nature and rich heritage of the city when
compared to other cities is said to be the reason for the presence of more old,
big trees in the area.
However, it is yet to see how long the city will hold
the title as the concrete jungle is razing down the remaining natural
vegetation in the satellite areas of the corporation like Bopal, Sanand and
Bhal.
Meanwhile, Bhavnagr, which had the highest number of trees,
recorded lower average tree size. According to officials, it is mainly due to
the large number of Acacia trees in the Victoria Park in the city.
Counting the number of big and old trees in a city is a wonderful idea. We should try doing that in the Philippines, so we could award the greenest city. Then we could do another count after a decade or more, and make it into some kind of a contest.
ReplyDeleteThat is an interesting idea, Ahyong. In that way(i mean by setting an award) we may inspire people to protect trees in their city spaces. Thanks for sharing your idea.
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