Bengaluru Hugging Trees and Clicking Selfies for a Good Cause

The garden city Bengaluru is going crazy hugging trees and clicking selfies, all for a good cause.

Once known as the Garden City, Bengaluru over the years has earned the tag of “garbage city”.

As its green cover is increasingly getting replaced by concrete blocks, the trees that do survive the brunt of development often wilt and wither away due to the constant abuse they are exposed to.

On July 4 this year, Indiranagar Rising, a Bengaluru-based citizen action group started an experiment on the 100 Feet Road in Indiranagar, called the “Namma Bengaluru Nanna Mara” (Our Bengaluru, My Tree) campaign.

Through the campaign, the volunteers aim to protect over 400 trees on the nearly 2.5 km long stretch in the city.

Adopt Trees

From stapling or pasting posters on tree trunks to dumping garbage at the base and at times even burning it on the spot, hundreds of trees in the city face rampant abuse everyday.

The concept of the campaign is quite basic. Each citizen can adopt one tree and look after its maintenance, which includes removing posters, clearing garbage, planting trees at the base and protecting it from any kind of abuse.

The volunteers believe in the “Kaam Chalu Mooh Bandh” approach to their work.

Nishanth, a volunteer with Bangalore Rising, says that around 50-70 people have adopted trees on the stretch till now and lots more have shown interest.

What has however amazed the volunteers is “the amount of debris that has come out from the area”.

How to Adopt a Tree?

• Pick a tree that you want to adopt.
• Remove all posters on it and click a selfie while holding the tree.
• E-mail the picture to [e-mail], with the file name treenumber_yourname.jpg.
• Once you adopt a tree, you are in charge of looking after it.

Stop Systemic Abuse

In a contest conducted by the group on Facebook, people were asked to guess the number of trees on the stretch. Most pegged it at around 50-150, but were shocked to know there were 447 trees on the road which is symbolic of Garden City. In fact, earlier there used to be 500 trees on the road, and a part of the campaign is to plant 53 trees to restore the original number.

Unlike the Chipko movement of the 1970s which was a rallying cry to save forests for livelihood and where women embraced trees to prevent deforestation, the Indiranagar Rising’s campaign is not solely about saving trees.

This is not about trees. This is not a tree-hugging / environmental campaign. These trees are not in danger of being chopped - they are systematically abused every day in front of us and we do nothing. Adopting a tree is symbolic.
—Indiranagar Rising’s campaign forum

Does Adopting Work?

Since the campaign kicked off around 45 days ago, volunteers have helped clear trees of posters and the garbage beneath them. At times advertisers are called and asked to refrain from pasting posters.

We asked some to not put posters on trees and they did not fight back. People are generally receptive.
—Nishanth

As part of the project, volunteers have also created a Google map to identify the trees which have been adopted and those that haven’t.