History Gone In Seconds

Many of us say we love nature. If you ask the question "Do you love nature?", irrespective of the age groups, the immediate answer would be "Yes". They won't stop with that. They will start narrating stories of how they used to feed birds, or taking care of calves or water plants etc. Deep inside us, we all want to love nature. But do we really show care and concern when an opportunity strikes? That would probably remain a very big question. 

Last week (around the end of May 2024) I was watching something and I couldn't say or do anything about it. We moved to Pammal, a town near Pallavaram on the outskirts of Chennai district in Tamilnadu 19 years ago. Before that, we were living in North Madras. The place lacks trees, because there is absolutely no place to plant. Wherever you turn, you will see buildings. So, during my childhood days, I hardly had an opportunity to watch a tree growing from the seedling stage. In fact, until I moved to Pammal, I have not had the opportunity to plant a sapling or a seed. But for some reason, there were plenty of sparrows in the city. I grew up watching those tiny birds. Today, we do not see them much in the cities. 

You may ask me, why am I giving this detailed background! Wait, I will come to the point. Pammal was and is a different place. As there was a lot of space, and there were many independent houses, people had a lot of time and space to plant trees. Those trees invited birds, insects and other forms of reptiles too. [Did you notice the tense in the last two sentences?] In fact I still remember seeing Mongooses and snakes in our neighbourhood. In the last 19 years, everyday was spent watching these animals and listening to their sounds. I recently found out that I have been able to identify close to 70+ species in my house garden itself using iNaturalist app. That's a small biodiversity present in the small place within the premises of my house.  

So, what supports these lifeforms? Obviously trees!! Humans are not the only beneficiary from having plants/trees within their houses. They support other lifeforms too. I have seen pollination happening in front of me because of bees. I have seen birds competing for space. I have seen woodpeckers pecking trees to build their nests. I have seen kingfishers trying to catch tadpoles and even small reptiles. The list goes on and on. 

When trees are cut to make way for buildings or for any other reason (unless it is unavoidable or the tree dies because of diseases or lightning strike), then the whole ecosystem gets affected. Bees don't come; birds don't have place to build their nests; there is no feeding ground for other dependent species; and so on and so forth. So, these trees as they grow are actually making history. How many birds and insects and mammals (like squirrels) would have lived, mated, produced their young ones and left the world! How many times they would have given fruits, flowers and other value added materials? I think this list is long too. 

The incident that I had mentioned above that happened last week was, a tree was cut. It was 25 years old. It was still giving fruits. It was cut for no reason. I tried to ask the person the reason for cutting and also mentioned the age of the tree (not that he was not aware of) but I could not stop it. It was sad to see history gone in seconds. The tree which took 25 years to grow, was cut in a short span of time. Can we bring back that history? Unless we have a connection with those plants and trees, we hardly pay attention to these everyday incidents. We are resilient! So, we do not get affected for long. 

We need to see the value behind such plant and animal species and do our best to protect them. It is the responsibility of everyone of us. We do not have to wait for an individual or an organization to come and tell us or stop us from doing this. We are the direct beneficiaries of plants and trees. We have always depended on them for our lives. Our history is also connected with the history of those plants and trees. When they are cut, our history gets axed too! Do we want our history preserved? Then lets save those beautiful plants and trees from axes.