Walking for trees, for the love of trees, in Thiruvananthapuram

If you asked my mother directions in this city, she would say, “Go straight, turn left, there will be a huge coconut tree. Turn right from there.” Trees were landmarks for her – and for us. She had a special way of describing them as beautiful or handsome or petite. She was, after all, a botanist and teacher. And she believed that one had to love trees to study botany.

My mother’s calendar was based on the flowering season of trees and their fragrances. By her last year, she had trouble seeing and hearing, but her sense of smell remained sharp. She would guess a flowering tree based on its fragrance. Her connection to nature was powerful. Trees were a part of our lives; we had a relationship with trees. As a teenager in the late 1970s, I was involved in the famous Save Silent Valley Campaign to save trees. 

In 2012, I gave formal shape to this relationship with the Tree Walk in Thiruvananthapuram to cherish the memory of my botanist mother and, equally, as a response to the rampant destruction of trees under the guise of city and road ‘development’. The purpose was to spread her love of trees to people, sensitise them, make them see beauty and diversity of trees, and show them the role of trees in maintaining the health of the city. 

The turn to tree activism came the following year when the Attakulangara High School, the city’s green lung with over a hundred trees, was to be handed over to the Thiruvananthapuram Development Authority for a Mobility Hub. The government decision meant a loss of trees and open space. We went to court to get a stay order on chopping the trees. The school alumni stepped in, poets and literary figures came out in support too; eventually, the government agreed to shelve the project and returned the land to the school in 2016. This campaign showed us how a citizens’ group can become a watchdog, a powerful force, to change government policy. We became activists and campaigners without even realising it.

Tree Walk has since evolved as a multi-pronged need-based activity. We have conducted more than 100 walks so far. Our walks are designed as 20-30 minutes long starting Sunday mornings 7am. Each walk has a name – one was ‘Without passport to Kandy’ because it featured trees of Sri Lankan origin, another was ‘Wonder Dozen Walk’ in which 12 trees were introduced. During the walks, people tell us about growing up around the trees they see now but had not noticed earlier.

Our walks are not technical, we want to get participants familiar with the trees, and build a language to talk about them. Our awareness campaigns and programmes across educational institutions and elsewhere in the city highlight the value of protecting trees. We also conduct detailed studies and map trees in Thiruvananthapuram. At the policy level, Tree Walk is involved in interventions and advocacy with decision makers. 

Tree species
Thiruvananthapuram city bears vestiges of its original vegetation along with the recent manicured landscapes like parks. This includes trees planted by the erstwhile Travancore Maharajas and colonial rulers. The road leading to Kowdiar Palace has many shade-giving trees planted by the royal family. The most prominent of these are Banyan, Peepal and Rusty shield-bearers or Copper Pods. 

Tree Walk has identified 50 species of trees across the city which is the green heritage of Thiruvananthapuram – the ubiquitous Rain trees, rare trees like Kaim, Haldu, Malabar Ironwood, Kino tree, the Handkerchief tree and the Fairypetticoat tree to name a few. In 2023, we mapped 25 rare trees along footpaths and in public places, and listed them in three categories: commonly found across Kerala but rarely in the city like the Wild Jack tree, endangered trees like Agarwood, and trees that grow in a rare ecosystem like the Malabar Ironwood. 

There is also an Abraham Jamun tree on Mahatma Gandhi Road – a tree so rare that only two have been reported. The second one was on the premises of a temple and was chopped down. We have two boys – tree volunteers – who work at a bookshop close to the surviving tree; they will alert us if they see suspicious activity around it. 

Tree Walk sees trees as our kith and kin, not merely beings with uses. That’s why when a tree is cut, we put a wreath and bid it goodbye. People think it is melodramatic but we do it because losing our friends makes us sad. The felling of a rare Honey Tree on the office premises of the Department of Non-Resident Keralites Affairs in Thycaud in 2023 ignited this aspect of our work. We had collected seeds, nurtured them from 2015-16, and were sad that it could not be saved. We organised a farewell for the tree. 

Tree Walk wants to ensure that such valuable trees are not lost to construction projects. Creating awareness among citizens and authorities so that they recognise the value of trees, especially of rare species, and protect them is our goal. In our mapping, we have listed trees that are in schools and recreation areas – the Kaim tree in the State Central Library compound, a Nile Tulip tree outside St Joseph’s School, a small-leaved Mahogany tree outside the Saphalyam shopping complex, and a Flame of the Forest tree on Tagore Theatre premises to name a few. A report has been submitted to the government.^[1] We are in the process of marking those trees too.

Why protect trees
All is not well with our trees. The city lost 9.06 thousand hectares of tree cover between 2001 and 2023 which is a decline by 5.9 percent making way for 4.96 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions.^[2] Many trees are ageing and there isn’t proper care, the state is not doing much to plant new trees or facilitate the growth of new saplings.

The tendency to cement the base of trees or place tiles there has also negatively impacted their stability. It is creating havoc in the microclimate and soil temperatures; soil moisture is just disappearing from this very complex and interwoven web.^[3] The pruning and cutting of tree branches in a haphazard manner has damaged their natural architecture, making them unstable. In a city, a single tree is equivalent to a forest and plays the role of a whole ecosystem, supporting many life forms and mitigating the harmful effects of rising temperatures and Urban Heat Island effect.

Many tree bases are workplaces for people doing unorganised and informal work. We have identified several trees in whose shade women sell their wares like fish and bananas. If these are hacked, these women will lose their workplace. They do not have a trade union to speak for them. So, losing individual trees across cities in Kerala will have an impact at the micro level socially and economically, besides ecologically. 

Trees, I believe, are managed landscapes. We need to manage them not by cutting them but ensuring that they have space to grow and perform their functions. Trees need at least 15 years to grow fully, which means three governments. Unfortunately, the attitude towards nature changes with each government. Officials have not fully appreciated the role of trees in mitigating the impact of climate change, especially heat. The city has had intense summers with fluctuations in daily atmospheric temperatures, summer now stretches into new months. Temperatures touched 36 degrees Celsius – 3 to 5 degrees Celsius above normal in April-May 2024.^[4] Unpredictable strong winds, deteriorating soil, and water scarcity are also impacts of the changing climate. 

The capacity of trees, especially those with spreading canopy, in decreasing the atmospheric temperature has been proven without doubt.^[5] The cooling effect of shade trees and trees as windbreaks has also been observed.^[6] The roots of trees hold moisture, retain soil balance and prevent erosion, recharge the groundwater while also absorbing the runoff during monsoon which can cause flooding. 

Tree Walk has documented the different trees that carry out varying and important functions in climate mitigation. We do tree healing too. It has symbolic value because it sends the message that trees are living beings too and we are responsible for looking after trees in a managed landscape like a city. Both traditional and modern systems of managing trees have to be resorted to save trees. Vriksha Ayurveda, an ancient form of tree healing, done by Binu K, a primary teacher from Kottayam, and his team helped revive a beautiful Tree Jasmine which was mutilated and withering away, a huge burnt Blackboard tree, and a Kaim tree in the public library premises.We organised the funding and Binu’s complex medicine for the first one in 2020; it came back to life within six months. The Blackboard tree too is now flowering and the Kaim was treated in August 2024.

The state and the law
The state has the Kerala Preservation of Trees Act, 1986, but it has an emphasis on Sandalwood (Santalum album), Teak (Tectona grandis), Rosewood (Dalbergia latifolia), Irul (Xylia Xylocarpa), Thempavu (Terminalia tomantosa), Kampakam (Hopea parviflora), Chempakam (Michelia chempaca), Chadachi (Grewia tiliaefolia), Chandana vempu (Cedrela toona), Cheeni (Tetrameles nudiflora).^[7] The Kerala Promotion of Tree Growth in Non-Forest Areas Act, 2005, calls for cultivation of trees in non-forest areas to increase green cover, preserve biodiversity, arrest soil erosion and increase the availability of timber and bamboo for industry.^[8] 

This Act has a section for the protection and maintenance of trees in public places. Schemes like Pachathuruthu, or Green Islet, by Haritha Keralam Initiative exist too. Started in 2019, the scheme aims to create forests wherever land is available but it has not been effective. In some places, the Miyawaki way is followed. Tree Walk does not subscribe to the Miyawaki method because it is an energy-intensive and artificial process. 

In 2017, the state constituted a Tree Committee to replace the erstwhile Tree Protection Committee. The mayor, its chairperson, has to grant permission to chop trees. This means the Social Forestry Wing and the Tree Committee have to be consulted, and the trees inspected, before permission is granted. However, the protection and maintenance of trees is not a priority in Town Planning schemes. The advent of multiple players in road development with contradictory development plans has also become a threat to trees. 

To drive home the point to the authorities that trees are like elders looking after the city, in 2022, Tree Walk participants bid goodbye to a huge Anjili or Wild Jack tree in PTP Nagar amidst much fanfare. It is difficult to estimate the age of tropical trees but it is an old species.^[9] Losing a big, old tree is like losing a heritage property. 

There is a need to document and map tree diversity in cities across the state. Since planting and maintaining trees is a big challenge, existing trees must be given protection. It would be ideal to prepare a Health Card for trees as per the protocol of the Kerala Forest Research Institute.^[10] Tree Walks is a citizen’s initiative born out of the love for trees but we also engage proactively with government departments like Public Works Department and Smart City Mission involved in projects that affect trees. We negotiate with authorities, make them understand the value of trees, work with the forest department. We find that officials are willing to at least answer our questions. 

Tree Walk activists take our watchdog role seriously. Academicians, medical professionals, engineers, architects, scientists, students and homemakers are sincerely committed to this. Many women are part of our walks. We are free to question and oppose plans or projects that threaten urban greenery, open spaces and tree spaces. We are not funded which means that we are not obliged to keep silent. The participation of citizens with no vested interests or hidden agendas is the strength of Tree Walk. We are bonded by our love and understanding of the value of trees. We are deeply and undeniably committed, philosophically and scientifically, to the need for trees. 

The city has no future without trees.

Anitha Santhi is a coordinator and founding member of Tree Walk, Thiruvananthapuram, since 2012. She has authored four books on Nature for children published both by Kerala Children’s Literature Institute and National Book Trust. She is also an environment consultant with various organisations. 

Cover photo: Anitha Santhi