Nature in her green, tranquil woods heals and soothes all afflictions – John Muir, American Naturalist
It has been quite some time since I posted my previous blog paper from the USA. I had to get away from my pressing personal engagements to snatch some moments to put together my random thoughts on one of the most important aspects of ensuring environmental amelioration in our urban settings. That is the subject of protecting the existing heritage trees in urban areas and augmenting urban green spaces (UGS).
Urbanization trend across the globe is keeping a fast pace, of course, for valid economic and social reasons. Cities and towns develop along with a host of environmental challenges that stem from high human densities, enhanced per capita consumption of resources, commensurate generation of wastes of all sorts and consequent environmental crisis. Human health implications from unplanned expansion of urban centers without adequate green space are huge. Urban forestry including trees and other forms of greenery is recognized as one of the simplistic solutions to maintain ecological equilibrium of vital natural elements and to render personal, social and economic services to urban dwellers.
Estimates of urban green spaces/woodland cover in different regions
From a global perspective, although there are wide variations both in coverage as well as per capita availability of green spaces, cities renowned for their urban green spaces often have 20 per cent to 35 per cent coverage of total geographical area and 25 to 100 sq. metre urban green space per capita. As compared to many European/Australian/US cities, cities in India are far behind in per capita green space, perhaps with the exception of Chandigarh and Gandhinagar. Setting a global standard on the availability of minimum required urban green space per capita has been elusive for long. During the 20th century, experts in Germany, Japan and other countries proposed a standard of 40 sq. m per capita in high quality urban forest systems to attain a balance between carbon-di-oxide and oxygen. Currently, developed nations have tended to adopt a general standard of green space of 20 sq. m park area per capita. However, the international minimum standard suggested by the World Health Organization (WHO) and adopted in the FAO publications is a minimum availability of 9 m2 of open green space per city dweller. The Indian cities listed above contain per capita urban green space that exceeds the WHO standard.
Challenges in the current day urban forestry practices
Few years back, I took up a project for drawing broad guidelines for Urban Green Space development in Tamil Nadu under the aegis of the Directorate of Environment. Several inadequacies and deficiencies are noticed in the current day urban planting practices in the urban local bodies of India that challenge their success. Demand for urban land for several other competing land uses connected with the promoting housing, commercial entities and service-related infrastructure leave only less area for greenery development, which choice is viewed as a loss of economic opportunity. Existing trees suffer the onslaught from ‘under the ground’ infrastructure, overhead transmission lines, end-to-end surfacing of road margins etc. Ad hocism rules the designing of linear or block plantations and selection of species. Exotics often take over the indigenous species without due credence to their ecological suitability. Lack of advance tree husbandry techniques and long term maintenance, vandalism and inadequate policy and legal support for urban forestry have been identified as weaknesses in the system.
More than as is in India, rapid urban spread across the USA has left merely a very few forest patches in some cities, which as urban ecological remnants serve as the last homes of relict vegetation. Scotts Valley, a city in Santa Cruz county of California, a small urban center located about 70 miles south west of San Francisco is one of those fortunate towns to be nestled in midst of verdant green space. Scotts Valley derived its name from Hiram Daniel Scott, who purchased Rancho San Agustin, including the valley in 1850 from Joseph Ladd Majors.
Verdant green in urban neighborhood
During my stay in California in the USA during March-April 2023, my nephew Ramesh introduced me to few of the most scenic urban neighborhoods of Scotts Valley- only a few miles from his residence. They include Henry Cowell Redwood State Park (4650 acres), the Glenwood Open Space Preserve (170 acres) and the Sky Park (approx. 20 acres). While the Redwood Park and the Glenwood Preserve have been relatively vast green spaces, comprising a profuse mixture of giant redwoods, Ponderosa pine, Douglas firs and tanbark oak, California hazelnut, big leaf maple and many other native species, the Sky Park is a highly developed urban park that provides a host of recreational opportunities for the local community.
Other than a sprawling lawn that duplicates into a soccer ground, a network of trails for walking/jogging/cycling, the Park offers a plethora of outdoor facilities. They include a skate court, large and small dog park, pump track, play areas, Bocce courts, tennis and pickle ball courts, calisthenics exercise equipments, kids birthday Gazebo, Gazebo with chess tables, Large BBQ Area and Individual BB’s with a spacious parking lot and restrooms. When at Scotts Valley town, the Park turned out to be my favorite haunting ground where I took long strolls to breathe fresh air.
It is in this town that I happened to see how the City council and the concerned urban service agencies take utmost care to guard their old growth forests and their iconic trees. Though Henry Cowell was subject to lumbering till about 1920s, logging is at present banished in the State Park and the Glenwood Preserve that have been laid with many hiking trails for the urbanites to walk/jog/cycle through and appreciate Nature in its abundance. I didn’t miss the opportunity to walk through the strenuous 3.3 mile Pipe Line road trail (each way) in the Cowell State Park during my stay here, as I did in 2015, where the cross-section of a 2000 year old Coastal redwood tree is in display. The trunk must have been from one of the heritage trees of the State Park. Herein stands towering redwood trees along the redwood loop trail, some of them as tall as 300 ft and as broad as 16 feet.
Of the mighty Coast Live Oak trees
All through my six weeks time in the Scotts Valley, I came across many fine specimens of the large Coast Live Oak, botanically named Quercus agrifolia within its well developed urban space. Endemic to coastal California, Coast Live Oak is an evergreen oak found from Mendocino County into Baja California. Its leaves are spinose (having spines), especially on younger trees and lower branches to discourage predation. Leaves on the underside of the tree’s canopy tend to be larger and thinner with only one layer of photosynthetic cells to capture the sunlight; whereas outer leaves are smaller and thicker with three layers of photosynthetic cells – and a concave shape to distribute the sun’s rays in the heat of summer. Like most oaks, it has an obligate relationship with mycorrhizal fungi, which provide critical moisture and nutrients for the tree.
Many animals depend upon Coast Live Oaks, the dominant tree of the coast woodland habitat for food and shelter. The California oak moth caterpillar lives solely on the leaves of the tree. Every eight to ten years the caterpillars emerge in sufficient numbers to denude the oaks – which recover, sending out new leaves after the infestation. It’s thought that this may be a mutually beneficial relationship, the oaks receiving fertilizer and the caterpillars’ sustenance. Acorn woodpeckers are also dependent upon Coast Live Oaks. A breeding pair will create a nesting cavity in a dead tree in which a group of adults participate in nesting activities. It is said that coast live oak acorns were used by as many as twelve Native American cultures as a staple food source. Later settlers used the wood for charcoal and for shipbuilding; but the greatest negative impact upon oak woodlands in the historical timeline was their clearing for developing the towns such as San Diego and San Francisco. However, I read from a related literature that Scotts Valley is fortunate in having a healthy urban population of relatively young Coast Live Oaks – which in given time – will grow to be as large as the magnificent specimens that graced the golden hills of California in bygone days.
The Glenwood open space Preserve and the Henry Cowell State Park, bordering the town boast many large groves of this prolific species. Within the Sky Park, there are few exceptionally majestic ones that can pass for their heritage value. In fact, standing before my nephew’s house in the Bean Creek Drive are few oak trees of immense size and spread that have grown to over four meters in circumference and with a canopy cover of about 400 sq. meter, which can easily assume the pride of place among the ‘champion trees’ of the locality. Though occurring in the midst of intense development with the distribution of many villas and the extensive network of underground drinking water, sewerage, and electric power lines, these huge trees stand testimony to the meticulous planning and execution of various civic amenities. With the surface area of the drive ways and walk paths within the colony cemented with concrete, the linear strips devoted for blooming ground vegetation and the areas surrounding the base of the tall trees are left open. The bare soil surface is either richly mulched with wood shaving, wood chip and bark or neatly packed with small stones to good effect. In most cases, mulch is found to greatly simplify one’s gardening chores. Mulch is used for covering the bare soil, for taking advantage of rain drops falling on soil and the stem flow seeping into the ground and for providing the much-needed thawing in the places experiencing temperate climate.
My nephew informed that the close-knit community of about a dozen villa owners contributes annually for the maintenance and upkeep of greenery in the common area with extreme care so that they don’t fall victim to any development. Few neighbors of my nephew, who have great interest in their trees, feel that they are fortunate enough to have Coast Live Oaks surrounding their house. They know that this privilege is a mixed blessing as the oaks constantly drop their leaves - no sooner do you sweep the deck than it’s ready to be swept again! However, they consider that it’s worth the work, because living beneath these great oaks also allows them to enjoy a parade of creatures - including wild turkeys, grey squirrels, band-tailed pigeons, native wood rats, Steller’s jays and acorn woodpeckers- that depend upon them for food and shelter.
Noticing the profoundly thoughtful manner in which the ground around the old Oaks has been tended here, my thought raced rapidly across the continents to the distant Chennai for a moment. I recollected with a sullen mood about the most depredating manner in which the ground around the grown up trees was found cemented either with concrete or paved with solid blocks in a public park of an urban local body, when I was doing a project on urban planting woes for the Directorate of Environment, Tamil Nadu, few years back. Of course, exceptions are there in the form of vast premises of Corporate houses with orderly rows of avenue trees in the midst of well-manicured lawns.
Sky Park wonder
In the Sky Park, I noticed a particularly outstanding specimen of Coast Live oak tree in front of the Recreation Department. This tree- might be several hundred years old- has its branches spread across few hundred sq. meters. In fact, the recreation office is pretty much located in the shades of this tree of striking proportions. Intrigued by the sight of a Galvanized Iron (GI) post that was holding a tree branch, I went circumambulating the tree only to see a peculiar set of prop arrangement done to five of its branches. Each GI pipe, welded with a typical ‘U’ piece at its top was found supporting a branch, which in the assessment of the park authorities is too weak to hold on its own. To my mind, this has provided a new lease of life to these tree limbs, which otherwise would have broken during heavy winds or a hail storm. Park management seemed to have thought another way. These fragile arms of the tree apparently are posing danger to the score of visitors thronging the park. Therefore, they erected alongside a bill board that reads as ‘Tree branches may fall without warning’. A note of caution! So, be watchful. Either way, it is a ‘win-win situation’, I admired.
Nonetheless, one neighbor of my nephew informed that sadly one of the town’s largest Coast Live Oaks to the north of City Hall was cut down few years back due to its shedding branches. He bemoaned that ironically the tree could well have lived another 200 years and quoted an old saying about Coast Live Oaks that they “live for 200 years and die for 200 years.”
Close to home in India, a visitor to the Theosophical Society campus at Adyar, Chennai always looks upon the 450 year old sprawling banyan (Ficus bengalensis) tree with awe and inspiration. During a visit to the area, I was excited to see that one of the banyan trees of amazing dimensions in the Society’s campus has sent its prop roots outside the compound wall onto the pedestrian pathway along the Adayar- Besant Nagar road. But here again, I was aghast to notice the mindless way in which the prop root that is found anchored to the ground has been treated. The banyan stems that have developed and proliferating well have been covered with paver blocks all around except leaving a few square feet of earthen surface. To top it, a hoarding has been erected at the base of one stem using the same as the tie post.
Scouting for identification and conservation of Champion quality tree stock
Champion quality trees form part of the natural-cum-cultural heritage of a town, district, state, region or a country. Few in numbers, they constitute the most outstanding remnants of nature and this tiny subset of trees survived the course of urban development and performed exceptionally well in tree form, stature, vigor and life span. Most cities across the globe and India have inherited only a small number of champion or heritage trees as ‘ecological gems’. Such trees are most times looked upon with awe and they are held in veneration or worship. The cream of such tree stock could be identified by six criteria: species, dimension, structure, performance, location, and special considerations such as species rarity, special ecological value, unique habitat, unusual tree form or dimensions, connection with notable personalities or events, landmark specimen and historical significance. A systematic champion tree survey can establish a scientific database to deepen our appreciation for tree heritage value and reinforce urban tree management. A champion tree register should cover developed lands and sites earmarked for future development.
It is a fact that more iconic tree specimens occur in the private holdings and village common lands in rural areas than in the forest lands, which need protection for ensuring their long term survival. In India, age old tradition of preserving sacred groves in the vicinity of settlements for their religious and spiritual significance and sthala viruksha (sacred temple trees) is seen as an inherent opportunity for protecting many old trees of outstanding natural heritage value. In a recent whatsapp chat in a group of forestry professionals, one of the members Mr. Jayprakasam shared a google image of a single banyan (Ficus bengalensis) tree standing in the midst of farm fields in Bithireddi village of Krishnagiri district in Tamil Nadu that holds a crown spread area of more than 7,000 sq.meter (about 1.75 acre).
In this context, it is gratifying that some symbolic gestures for protection of older trees are forthcoming from provincial governments in India. Recognizing the role of old trees in giving more oxygen due to their spread, Government of Haryana state in India recently launched a scheme titled 'Pran Vayu Devta (Oxygen God) Pension’ scheme under which trees older than 75 years of age will get an annual pension of Rs.2500, payable to the people who have such trees in their fields and houses.
Let us hope that such initiatives would augur well for the conservation of heritage trees for posterity.
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