How Tree Lovers Rescued a Kolkata Neighbourhood

Chandrima S. Bhattacharya | The Wire
A group of tree lovers, mostly in their 70s and 80s now, has been passionately planting trees in a Kolkata locality, which now offers its own challenge to global warming.

Kolkata has been listed as one of the 20 cities in the world that have hotted up most in the last six decades by a recent UN report . The city also sports the lowest green cover among Indian mega cities.

But the south Kolkata locality of Baishnabghata-Patuli, Patuli in short, is a pleasant surprise. Tall trees cast a fine filigree of shadows on the ground here, and a few minutes of walking into the Patuli area on one side of the E.M. Bypass, where the Patuli fire brigade building is located, you feel a sudden, sharp drop in temperature even on a cool Kolkata December morning.

At a time climate change and global warming were distant rumours, residents of the locality began to plant trees. About three decades later, the trees number about 2,000 in an area of about 1.5 sq km, bringing with them a range of climate benefits, finds a recent report by the Kolkata-based environment group The Climate Thinker.