Iffath Fathima By Express News Service BENGALURU: It’s been a long time since environmentalists and urban conservationists have been asking the BBMP to carry out a tree census in the city. However, with BBMP showing no sign of initiating this drive, residents have taken it upon themselves to carry out the census. A few months back, Whitefield residents carried out a tree census, covering 800 trees. Now, the residents of Bellandur have joined in this initiative of conducting a tree census in their locality. On Sunday, members of Bellandur Jothege teamed up with Project Vruksha (the first tree census app) created by tree doctor Vijay Nishanth and started mapping the trees in Bellandur ward. About 20 volunteers, including many children, joined in to map the trees and walked down the stretch of Outer Ring Road, marking 32 trees. “Last year we did a ‘green Bellandur campaign’, where we planted many trees. However most of the trees were not taken care of. Many were enthusiastic to plant it but they did not maintain it. Now, we want to take corrective and preventive measures. We want to look after the trees that already exist. “When volunteers map the trees, they feel connected to it. There are cases where trees have been chopped and most of the times when there are complaints made to the BBMP forest cell, there is no proof to show that the trees existed. We can now show them proof if any tree is affected in Bellandur ward,” said Kishori Mudaliar, a member of Bellandur Jothege. Parameters like height, girth, width, age, health, GPS position, and the likes can be recorded using this application. This apart, the Vruksha app has marked 1,000 trees in Pattabhiramnagar ward too.

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