Student Fights His Neighbour To Defend 15-Year-Old Tree From Being Cut Down

Admin 15-Jun-2016 13:56:15 Inothernews

Student Fights His Neighbour To Defend 15-Year-Old Tree From Being Cut Down


Upon learning that a neighbour wanted to chop down a 15-year-old coconut tree at the corner of their road in a private layout near Hennur to start building a new house - despite the tree not being part of the residential plot - local resident Sasha Moses, 20, was perturbed. When polite requests to the woman to leave the tree alone went unheeded, the graduate student went out of her way to contact the concerned BBMP officials and fought to ensure the tree was not be cut down as "every one of the 50 coconut trees in the layout is precious to the residents." Much before Moses's family built and moved into a home in Trinity Orchard off Hennur main road nearly 12 years ago, the coconut tree in front of their house stood tall and proud. Almost all the other residents chose to leave the coconut trees surrounding their plots undisturbed, leaving the roads in the layout dotted with them; so imagine the family's agony when they learned that their new would-be neighbour wanted to chop the tree down. "She can do whatever she wants on her land, but this particular tree is in its prime and located at the corner of the road that leads to our house and her plot. It does not hamper the construction of her house, nor has it inconvenienced anyone else in any way. The workmen themselves have agreed to this; but when we told her there was no need to chop it down, she refused to listen. My father has stopped workers from attempting to cut it down on two separate occasions, and I am desperate to save the tree," Moses told Mirror.



The gritty girl then took to social media, where she was given suggestions about whom to contact and what to do. She tried calling a few landline numbers of the BBMP forest cell but could not get through; what did work, however, was the Sahay mobile application.

She lodged a complaint online and was sent an SMS with details of a forest officer who was designated to handle the case, but has not called her yet.

"When the woman realised that we were not going to back down, she tried instigating our other neighbours. They have been listening to both sides of the story and have told us they, too, do not see the point of cutting the tree down, even if it is just one. But nobody else has stood up to her. While I am all for living in harmony, I do not want a beautiful, healthy tree to pay the price for it," she said.

To deter the woman from trying to cut the tree again, Moses printed and pasted a notice on the tree saying that cutting trees on roads is illegal without the prior permission of a forest officer.

"I hope the issue is resolved soon and in favour of the tree. This may not be a big deal to many, because it is a single tree, but every tree in this layout is important to us. We want to preserve the tranquillity of this area in an age where tree cover in Bengaluru is depleting rapidly," she added.

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