Author: Stephen David
Publication: India Today
Date: June 1, 2009
URL: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/index.php?option=com_content&Itemid=1&task=view&id=43333§ionid=24&issueid=107&latn=2
Introduction: A lone Bangalore woman gives
a new dimension to green activism by going beyond protests and petitions and
planting 12,000 saplings in the city.
There is an alternative to protests and signing
petitions when civic agencies cut down trees. Instead of getting dismayed
at the rapidly depleting green cover in Bangalore, Janet Yegneswaran, 57,
launched a campaign by planting saplings.
Beginning with her own locality, Ejipura,
she then persuaded friends to mark special occasions like birthdays by just
planting trees. She even planted trees in the compounds of her neighbours
and nurtured them even though other neighbours have refused.
The sapling of an idea has grown into a big
tree of activity now. The plant-a-tree initiative, Trees for Free, began as
a mission to remember her husband who passed away four years ago, says Yegneswaran.
She has friends like Vinod Lal, an ad agency copywriter, who lends support
by designing her green Bangalore campaign. Steadily, the tree lady and her
band of volunteers have planted nearly 12,000 trees in the city.
It is not only the general public that supports
her, but even the city corporation that has given a carte blanche to her to
plant trees anywhere in the state capital. A self-taught tree specialist,
Yegneswaran waits for the monsoons-the best time-to buy saplings from the
Forest Department. She even has people lining up at her modest home seeking
help in planting trees and preserving the environment around their homes.
The cost is minimal: it takes just Rs 100
to sponsor a tree for a month. Already, corporate honchos like Vijay Reddy,
joint MD of the SJR Group, are supporting such initiatives. "The only
way to add to the city's green cover is to plant more trees," says Reddy.
"We want the tree planting mission to
take deep roots, especially with the young ones," Yegneswaran says, hoping
that such efforts will go a long way in ensuring that Bangalore regains its
fame as the "garden city". Some call her Bangalore's answer to Kenya's
tree lady Wangari Maathai, the 69-year-old winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace.
Maathai was honoured for her Green Belt Movement that has planted thousands
of trees during the last 30 years. Yegneswaran has not reached there yet but
she is at it. One tree at a time.
