CHENNAI: A survey on avenue trees in a couple of residential localities in the city by a non-governmental organisation has shown that the trees were subjected to a lot of vandalism.

According to the volunteers of Nizhal, the survey, initiated in June this year with the assistance of Ford Business Services, was conducted in Valmiki Nagar.

The residential locality in South Chennai is a comparatively new area and has six main roads well covered by trees.

The survey also covered Rajagopalan Streets I, II, and III. Residents themselves had planted most of the saplings about a decade ago when it was not under the Chennai Corporation's jurisdiction.

The survey covered half-a-square kilometre and nine streets with a total length of about 5 km.

Maximum number of trees were found on Balakrishnan Road (121) and 4th Seaward Road (119), followed by 2nd Seaward Road (83), 3rd Seaward Road (65), 1st Seaward Road (36), K.K. Road (29) and Rajagopalan Streets I, II, III (50).

It was found that 112 trees were virtually strangled by pavement construction, 104 exhibited severe signs of stress, 125 had been abused by nailing commercial advertisement boards, 99 were affected by road digging and had external injuries, 79 suffered due to construction debris dumped around them and 147 lacked care, the survey revealed.

As many as 30 species of trees were found in these areas, the most common being gulmohar (30), followed by neem (22), rain tree (19) and copper pod (13).

The other species included pungam, silk cotton and Indian cork tree (Maramalli).

The survey also revealed that more than half of the planted saplings were young and planted only within the last decade.

It was evident that tree planting was active on these roads only recently.

The survey indicated the need for instituting proper planning in planting saplings and their care along roadsides. Otherwise all efforts taken would go waste, the study said.

The survey would soon be extended to other areas, the volunteers added.

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