Green crusaders bat for protection of banyan trees in Hyderabad

Hyderabad: Holding umbrellas and braving the Sunday drizzle, green activists and members of Nature Lovers of Hyderabad (NLH) attended a programme on the Hyderabad-Chevella road, aimed at spreading awareness on preserving banyan trees and the inherent challenges in translocation. Over 40 nature lovers including children turned up at the awareness programme, which began with putting […]

Hyderabad: Holding umbrellas and braving the Sunday drizzle, green activists and members of Nature Lovers of Hyderabad (NLH) attended a programme on the Hyderabad-Chevella road, aimed at spreading awareness on preserving banyan trees and the inherent challenges in translocation.

Over 40 nature lovers including children turned up at the awareness programme, which began with putting pictures of hearts and posters on the trees. Participants then stood along the road, holding placards, and shouted slogans in support of banyan trees.

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The nature lovers then sang Vandemataram and Hum Honge Kaamyaab and Children did some nature crafts with ‘jungli badam’ and gulmohur pods.

Naturalist Kobita Dass Kolli used a model of a banyan tree that she made, to demonstrate why translocation does not work. Participants then read out poems on nature after which a quiz was conducted on India’s national tree – the banyan.

Divya, a BMS student at St.Francis College said, “Earlier I believed that translocating trees is better than deforestation as the damage is minimal. But after today’s session, I realised that translocating old heritage trees is almost as bad as deforestation. It affects not only the trees but also the whole ecosystem surrounding it”.

Nature Lovers of Hyderabad has been running a campaign to save 914 old and valuable banyan trees and 9000 other trees on the Hyderabad-Manneguda road since 2019. They recently geotagged each of the banyans and launched a map with details of the location of the trees with photographs.