The Irony of “Green” Development
While strolling through the mini-forest (image below), me and my childhood friend (who happens to be an Administrative Officer) were having a great time.
He suddenly said, “Hey, we can totally turn this into a Green campus!” I took a quick look around and noticed that the area is filled with beautiful trees. The road is quite narrow, but it’s wide enough for vehicles to travel at a speed of 20–30 km/hr. You can easily cross over to the next vehicle without any worries. Many people choose to walk on the roadside or even cycle. After a brief pause of approximately 30 seconds, I kindly enquired, “How would you go about developing it as a green campus?”
He said, We have an architectural consultant who specialises in creating stunning structures.
We will carefully chop off the trees on the inner side of the forest (so that it will take some time before someone notices the cutting of trees), create a beautiful lawn, plant lush green spongy grasses, and build the beautiful structures. We will also create parking at the entrance! And We will designate this as a Strict Green zone, where only electric vehicles will be allowed.
Finally, he mentioned that if we propose this to the government, we will get good amount of funding, way more than sufficient. We can make lot from it.
I said, so, if I understand correctly, you’re saying that you’ll need to cut down a lot of trees to make a lawn, build structures, and create a parking area. This will result in over 50% of the trees being removed, and then certify this as a strict green zone. While I understand the current government administrative perspective, it seems like they have a false vision for development.
You, my friend, wanted to transform the existing Self-sustaining, Zero-maintenance, Absolute Green Zone, into a Non-sustainable, High-maintenance zone which would gradually be converted into ruins in matter of years due to lack of maintenance.
And you’re declaring this a Strict Green Zone after turning it into a graveyard of thousands of trees?
God May save you, my friend? In order to develop a place like this existing one, which you wanted to destroy in the name of a Strict Green zone, you’ll need your 5 generations.
He had such a great laugh, more like Kumbhakaran of Ramayan and shared with me the thumb rule and steps to develop any place:
1. When there are more trees in a particular region, it creates a great opportunity for growth and development.
a. First things first, let’s cut down a good number of trees.
b. Please remember to start cutting trees slowly from the inside, so that people won’t notice any significant changes.
c. Just a friendly reminder to avoid cutting trees. Instead, try uprooting them and covering the area with leaves. This way, even regular visitors and environmentalists won’t be able to tell that the trees have disappeared.
d. If you happen to have more trees like mini forest, you can begin by gently trimming their branches and creating a पगडंडी (a narrow footway between the forest by chopping branches of trees) by separating the area. Then, you can gradually widen the footway.
e. If you’re interested in clearing a significant area of forest, such as a few acres, you can also consider cutting the well developed forest for the purpose of planting special plants that are rare, foreign, or medicinal.
Please ensure that you have a reliable local news agency that can display news and, if necessary, delete it from their database.
2. Start by making as many structures as you can. Build as wide road as possible till the people donot speak about it. Cover the remaining space with cement tiles very much in trend now a days? I asked -Why so many structures and so wide road. He smiled and said, Margin plays a big role.
3. Now, let’s cover the remaining area with some lovely green grasses. Although the Green Spongy Grasses are most non- green thing and gulps lakhs of litres of under ground water, but seeing green colour of grass people will get convinced that it is a green zone 😊. Also you may get some margin under the head of maintenance.
Hey there! That’s all. What I just shared is a super cool way to develop a place and make some serious cash. Hahaha! That’s so funny! :D.
This time, I told him that your laughter resembled that of Kansa,the evil king from Dwapar Yuga. He immediately replied, “The more amusing aspect is that he frequently compares himself to Shri Krishna among his junior staff”.
Later, He also mentioned that slogans for greenery, such as “Plant Trees, Save Lives,” are given as a fake show off of the government’s commitment to the environment. However, if the government truly wants and have the intent to improve the environment and promote tree plantation and forest growth.
Instead of giving slogans to people, they would focus on encouraging and giving targets to Administrative Officers to plant trees. The only slogan for the people would be to act as guardians of trees in their society, ensuring that no one cuts them down. And this is absolutely crucial right now.
With this, enjoying the present with Poha and tea with my childhood friend.
Goodbye! Take care and rest well. Things will get better! 😊
Jai Bajrang! Peace!
- Bhushan Singh Gautam
(M.E. IISc Bangalore)