It took the Central Zoo Authority (CZA) to save the city’s green lungs when, on Tuesday, it asked the BMC to spare the trees at Byculla Zoo.
Environmentalists are not convinced yet; demand public scrutiny of the modified initial plan
It took the Central Zoo Authority (CZA) to save the city’s green lungs when, on Tuesday, it asked the BMC to spare the trees at Byculla Zoo during the implementation of the latter’s prestigious zoo makeover plan.
The zoo has over 3,173 trees in its premises at present. The authority, while approving the Rs434 crore makeover plan, added a clause that no trees and heritage structures should be touched in the process.
“The location of structures, buildings, pathways will be altered in the master plan to protect the trees,” said RA Rajeev, additional municipal commissioner (city). This means that if a structure proposed in the initial plan required trees to be axed, it would now have to be erected at a site that had no trees.
“Improvement of structures that were funded by the CZA will be done,” said Rajeev. Also, the initial plan to house more than 90 animal species from three continents — Asia, Africa and Australia — in the zoo still stands.
Bangkok-based HKS Designers and Consultants International Co Ltd and US-based Landscape Designers Portico Group would design the zoo on international lines and replicate the animals’ natural habitat. The new zoo will have 3-D theatres, theme parks, car park, night safaris, animal rides, gift shop and restaurants.
However, the greens are not yet convinced with the BMC’s modification of the master plan. “Since October 2007, the BMC has been saying that no trees would be felled.
Experts from CZA, in December 2007, had said if the master plan was implemented, the entire botanical garden would be under threat,” said Hutoxi Rustomfram, member, Save Rani Bagh Botanical Garden Committee (SRBBGC).
“There should be public scrutiny of the modified master plan, as people have the right to such information,” said Rustomfram.
Recently, when Rajeev had assured the greens that only diseased trees would be felled, SRBBGC had written to the chief minister, superintendent of gardens, member secretary of CZA, secretary of ministry of environment and forests asking for the appointment of an independent agency like the Forest Research Institute, Botanical Survey of India or Bombay Natural History Society for a health check of the trees.
b_linah@dnaindia.net 
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