Guardian Trees
Some municipal corporations, states and countries have now started identifying the old trees to conserve and protect them for the coming generations. Similar criteria are being followed by majority of policy makers. They have started to identify the old trees of social and historical relevance. Countries like United Kingdom, New Zealand and some others have assigned these tasks to a group of professionals along with a registrar to list these heritage trees. In India states likes Haryana, Utter Pradesh, Tamilnadu, Uttrakhand and others are identifying the trees of more than 50 to 70 years of age and belonging to important native species with some cultural significance or the trees falling under rare endangered and threatened category. Species that have some ecological importance or are a part history or symbolic of an historic event are too being identified by some states by the name of ‘Heritage Tree’. ‘Pran Vayu Devta’ is another name of the scheme used by a state to identify and protect these trees. Trees census are being carried out and used by some municipal corporations to identify these trees. Haryana identified approximately. 8000 trees by the use of an application from local people to pension the owner of the trees for protection and conservation. Aurangabad and Thane municipal corporations used tree census and identified the trees of relevance that have been entitled to heritage tag. In Trichy in Tamilnadu a nonprofit organization has been able to identify 100 such heritage trees in Tamilnadu and some trees in neighbouring Kerala and Pondicherry. Whereas in UP, Biodiversity board of the state has been assigned to tag the trees as heritage tree, they are identifying the trees of historic importance and the trees more than 100 years old.
In Bihar, a mobile application is going to be launched to identify these heritage trees. Using this application residents of the state will be enabled to list these heritage tree with district, block, panchayat, species, trunk diameter, height, age and photograph of the trees. State biodiversity council are heading this process of listing these veteran trees. Bio diversity management committees across the state will identify the trees along with local people. They are targeting the maximum data through that app to list these heritage trees.
Keeping in mind the extremely valuable ecosystem services, carbon sequestration, release of oxygen, shade, soil conservation, creation of micro climate and many more services that these trees provide, the society throughout the world has been highlighting the issue of conserving and protecting these heritage trees and some lawmakers started to list these veterans by using some criteria considering size, form, shape, age and rarity of the species. The aesthetic, ecological, social, cultural and historical values and specimen associated with a historic person, place, event or period are also taken into account.
One of the most efficient and unique programme is being run by the district administration East Champaran under the leadership of district magistrate in the state of Bihar. They are trying to make it a people oriented campaign to conserve and protect these veterans. Under this ‘Guardians of Champaran’ they have used local survey and a app names “Paryavaran ke Prahari” to identify the trees older than 50 years. They have identified more than ten thousand trees with geo location and all basic information regarding each of these tree.
Another app named “Guardians of Champaran” has been developed to make all data related to this tree available to public to enable them to know and own these veteran trees. With the help of this app, people can see the all the records of geo-tagged guardian trees within their vicinity and can own them and subsequently take oath to protect them for which a certificate gets generated as a gesture of appreciation and for their records. The tree protection committee is formed for each of the tree. They have been assigned the task of taking care of the trees and protecting them through methods of soil treatment, covering up of exposed roots and lime treatment etc. These Sanrakshak Mandal are formed at ward, panchayat and block levels; comprising of the local people, Panchayati Raj Institution representatives and especially women members who are deeply associated and dedicated towards the cause of this campaign. Along with virtual and social media campaigns several important festivals and days are being celebrated under these guardian trees to acquire attention of the children, youth and other people living in vicinity of these guardian trees.
Using the app more than 100000 individuals now own a guardian tree and have pledged to protect them. These figures make the campaign of district one of the most successful campaigns related to protection and conservation of these heritage trees. The advantage of this system is that it keeps track of the location of all the guardian trees along with the information regarding person owning it and the group of people responsible for its protection, all at a single place in the application.
