Nagpur: With the recent rains leaving the lush green effect on trees lined up along Nagpur streets, there’s more to it than meets the eye! Behind the swaying leaves and bouncing branches is the pain that many of the trees in busy areas has to suffer.
As if choking of roots through concretization and excessive pollution was not enough, the trees are now bearing new tyranny of mankind. Most of the trees are now being used as support to endorse commercial purpose of many so called professionals and advertisers. Moreover, various services and announcements are being made through trees, and how? The bill boards and sign boards have been mercilessly nailed into these trees.
While most of us are still aloof to this emergent situation that has reached an alarming level, an aware citizen and one of our readers Avinash Gowardhan has shared few pictures narrating the ordeal of such trees.
In one of the pictures that Gowardhan shared, a tree near Laxminagar at Aath Rastaa Square is seen nailed with a display board showing name of a cost accountant.
In his mail sent to Nagpur Today, Gowardhan shares, “As a responsible citizen, we should never attach any objects to trees with nails, screws or anything that penetrates the outer bark. It can damage the cambium, the area just beneath the bark where cells rapidly divide and increase tree girth. It also can wound the phloem, the cells that carry nutrients from the canopy to the roots; and the cells that transport water and nutrients to the canopy.”
He stated that nailing trees and harming them in any way is an offense under the Tree Preservation Act. Further, using tree for advertisement also amounts to offense under as using public space for advertising, free of cost.
Not only Gowardhan NT too feels that there should be some mechanism to penalize the advertiser to stop this menace.
