Project Vruksha will be launching its web portal tomorrow.
The city’s first ever tree census, ‘Project Vruksha’, is under way. The five-year endeavour is the initiative of a team of eight citizens and tree lovers.
The main purpose of the census is to know whether Bangalore is indeed a garden city. The project will not only identify the exact number of trees in the city, but also their species, location and present condition.
The project kickstarted with a study of trees in Hampinagar ward in September. The 21-day study concluded that the ward had 3,000 trees and saplings. This data will be fed into a biodiversity portal, which is to be launched on Sunday.
Speaking to DNA, Vijay Babu S, general secretary of Sattva Welfare Association, an NGO, said, “Over the past few years, we have lost a large number of trees in the name of development. The government and various departments have planted many saplings, but the question is how many have actually survived. The census, therefore, will help us know how many trees, plants and saplings are actually present in Bangalore and in what condition.”
Vijay, the brain behind the census, is a III year BE computer science student in BNMIT College. The other team members are Kiran Kumar V, Shariff S, Narayan, Ravi R, Jayan P and Joyraaj Chakroborthy. The census is an independent endeavour of the team and receives no financial help from anyone.
The idea was conceived by Vijay three years ago with the aim to bring in accountability in the collation of data and to bring people together to save and make Bangalore green again.
Vijay said that all the information obtained would be updated on the portal for everyone to see. The data would also be shared with the BBMP.
“After Hampinagar, the census will move over to Jayanagar and Vijayanagar. Citizens are welcome to participate in the census. All they have to do is contact us and undergo a small training, after which they can be a part of the project. The portal and the study methodology have been endorsed by experts,” he added.
The ward-wise, street-wise census is conducted in such a way that the volunteers go to a particular street, identify the trees and their species, their exact location, their condition and measure the girth of each tree. This data is then mapped through GPS and is overlaid on Google Earth and placed on the portal.
Experts are excited over the census and opined that this was needed for a rapidly developing city like Bangalore.
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