advertisement
New Town in Rajarhat is an urban hub of East Kolkata with shopping malls, educational institutions, hospitals, corporate houses and every conceivable civic amenity an urban space can boast of.
Debashis Sen, IAS, Chairman of the Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (HIDCO), the state government agency initiating the project, says,
New Town’s proximity to the biodiversity-rich East Kolkata Wetlands (EKW), meant that myriad birds and some small animals – like the jackal and Bengal mangoose – were once a common sight.
Today, much of this natural habitat has been lost to urbanisation. It was paramount that the authorities came up with an alternative; a sustainable habitat to conserve what precious little remains of the wildlife and help urbanites connect with nature.
Green for Life Foundation, an environment NGO, is undertaking the forest plantation at another zone in Action Area I of New Town. The first saplings went down in December 2017. This monsoon, some 600-700 more saplings will take root and the whole plantation of 8,500 trees – comprising of neem, lambu akashmoni, krishnachura and bokul – is expected to be completed within 3 years.
Curtis Arathoon, a trusty of Green for Life Foundation believes an urban forest is only possible with community participation. He says,
They also encourage individuals to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries and gift their loved ones a tree.
Although these saplings will take another 5 to 7 years to grow into trees, the prospect of the difference this urban forest will make to the environment excites Arathoon –
Their focus is on evergreen trees (which fight climate change) and some fruit bearing trees (to bring back the birds).
When we spoke to Sumit Sen, renowned ornithologist and co-author of books like Birds of India and The Sundarbans Inheritance, he said he welcomes this initiative –
Despite substantial loss of natural habitat, Rajarhat still has specks of water bodies and some gorgeous grasses more than a couple of feet high which attract grassland and wetland birds.
According to Sumit Sen, out of the 250-270 species of birds in Kolkata, around 200 are found in Rajarhat, of which 30% are migratory.
Birdier Suvajit Das – member of ‘Sunday Watch’, ‘Ask id’s of Indian Bird,’ and Bihanga birding communities – says that a large number of birds can be seen in Rajarhat.
Although he’s glad an urban forest will ensure these birds don’t disappear, Das remains concerned, however, over the killing of a few birds by local villagers, for meat.
(Lesley D Biswas is a freelance writer who writes articles on parenting, environment, travel and women, besides fiction.)
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)