KOCHI: Around 30,000 standing trees are likely to be felled to make way for the Global Industrial Finance and Trade (GIFT) City project which is proposed to be set up on 146 hectares at Ayyampuzha in Ernakulam.
Following the request from revenue authorities who are acquiring land for the project, the social forestry wing of the forest and wildlife department completed the evaluation process of the trees last week. According to the evaluation the timber value of the trees which have been identified to be acquired is more than Rs 2 crore.
The trees with a girth of 70cm and above are considered as big trees for the evaluation. “There are more than 50 varieties of trees in the project site, which is human inhabited area. The trees which were identified to be disposed from the project site are commonly found trees in households like teak, mahogany, jackfruit tree, rubber tree, mango tree, tamarind tree, wild jack tree, etc.,” said source of social forestry office.
Considering protest by the local people citing the environmental impact of the upcoming project, the authorities have already made it clear that no manufacturing units would be there in the GIFT City. It is learnt that authorities are mainly planning knowledge-based and banking institutions there. The project is expected to create over 1.2 lakh direct and 3.6 lakh indirect employment opportunities.
Social activist C R Neelakandan said that cutting a large number of trees at Ayyampuzha will make a major impact on nature, similar to that of indiscriminate mining and quarrying. “We should seriously discuss about the high ecological value of a standing tree before going to take extreme decisions like disposing large number of trees,” he said, adding that the monetary value of a project, under which hundreds of trees are required to be cut, is sometimes very less than the economic and environmental worth of the felled trees.
In March, the Supreme Court had set up a seven-member expert committee to recommend policy guidelines for cutting of trees for development projects. In an earlier judgment, a Supreme Court bench led by Justice S A Bobde suggested that the government frame a protocol to include the value of trees to be felled, in the total cost of a proposed project. The remarks came after an expert committee estimated the value of 300 trees with a life span of 100 years at Rs 220 crore. The committee said that a tree’s monetary worth is its age multiplied by Rs 74,500.
Meanwhile, the survey work as part of the land acquisition of the GIFT City project is in its final stage and the compensation distribution to the land owners would be completed within months. “The trees at the project site would be disposed of only after the distribution of compensation to land owners,” informed an official of the revenue department.
