300-yr-old baobab axed for metro 2B
MUMBAI: In the heart of Santacruz, in SV Road, a baobab tree that stood for over 300 years, witnessed the area’s transition from Portuguese and British rule to the post-independence era, disappeared Saturday morning; causing anger, confusion and invoking grief among residents.
The 40-feet high tree, an important part of the area’s history and everyday life of the residents, who fondly called it Santacruz’s oldest citizen, was chopped by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) for the development of Mumbai Metro 2B’s Santacruz station.
The tree, over 300-year-old, according to former secretary of Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) Ashok Kothari and historian Debashish Chakraverty, survived this long as residents marched to save its existence.
“In 1979, when there was a move to cut the trees on SV Road, we marched to save the tree,” Ashok recounted. “We were accompanied by Debi Goenka and school children. My own daughter, who was a kid then, was with us.”
Reagen Creado, an activist involved in the fight to protect the tree which was eyed by the metro authorities for a long time, said, “I returned to the site of the tree after we got the news of it being cut, and the sight was a shock to us,” said .
“No trace of the tree was left. The base of the tree had been cemented. It was like it never existed there before,” said Creado. Former state environment minister and Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray on Monday slammed the Eknath Shinde-led state government for chopping the tree. He promised “strongest possible punishment” for the authority who cut the tree, once the Sena UBT forms a government and said, “They cannot ruin my Mumbai.”
Another activist, part of the group formed to save the tree called Tree Lovers of Santacruz, Aditi Jayakar, expressed her shock at seeing the tree vanished.
“It is a massive loss, as all of us had an emotional connection to the tree,” she said. “None of us had a whiff of their plans to chop the tree down. If we did, then at least we would have fought for its transplantation.”
Kothari explained why the tree meant so much to him and gave us history of the tree. “These are trees whose saplings were bought all the way by traders coming from Madagascar in Africa, and planted by the Portuguese. They’ve been there from the time only horses and bullock carts travelled the roads. They keep the area cool, and their huge canopies are equivalent to that of many young trees,” he went on. Kothari said he and other residents will not let this go. “We will take out a protest, on May 5 on the lines of a funeral for the tree,” he said.
Aditi Jayakar recalled, “We felicitated the tree, calling it Santacruz’s oldest citizen, to increase awareness of its age and stature.” The residents even put up flex posters with information about the tree: that it is native to Madagascar, it can live up to 2,000 years, their peculiar appearance giving them the nickname of ‘upside down trees.
Jayakar said the metro officials promised several activists who met MMRDA officials that the station design would be tweaked to leave the tree unscathed. A metro official claimed the tree was cut with all permissions and procedures in place, and said that further study showed that the tree could not be left as it was for metro work.
The BMC’S notice on its website dated January 2024, lists 93 trees to be cut - of which only 26 will be transplanted.