Ahmedabad's green heritage: City has maximum number of aging giant trees

AHMEDABAD: The city is miserably low when it comes to number of trees per person. Surprisingly though, it is home to a huge number of big and old trees.

A tree is called big when it has achieved a trunk girth of over 200 cm. The first ever tree count taken up by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation has revealed that there are 14,150 trees in its jurisdiction with a girth of about 200 to 250 cm and 6,420 trees of 251 to 300 cm. The count also revealed that there are 2,310 trees which have girth of over 300 cm.

The average tree size in Ahmedabad is bigger than all other cities of Gujarat. Of the 6.18 lakh trees in the city, there are 22,880 with a girth of 200 cm and above. It is 3.7 per cent of the total tree count in the city and is much higher than the same figure for Gandinagar, the greenest city in India. In the eight municipal corporations of Gujarat, there are a total of 33,619 trees with girth of over 200 cm.

Additional principal chief conservator of forest of Gujarat H S Singh said, "In all eight municipal corporation, only 1.31 per cent of total trees have girth of over 200 cm. A heritage city, Ahmedabad has relatively more old trees than in the others."

Certain areas such as Ahmedabad, and its satellite including Bopal, Sanand, and neighbouring Bhal region, are being filled up by concrete structures at the cost of wetlands, natural vegetation and agricultural lands, the official added.

On the other hand, the average tree size much lower in Bhavnagar, which has overall higher count. This is due to a large number of small trees (Acacia Senegal) in Victoria Park in that city, said an official of forest department.