First ever successful TREE trans location done in Belagavi

Urbanization and development are an inevitable part of living today. Road widening has to happen in every city, but, this comes at the cost of losing green cover. Though transplantation and translocation of trees is an age-old activity the world across, it is rarely looked to as a solution before a tree is brought down.

First time in our city, an initiative has been taken by the PWD Department along with the Forest department to save the Environment & Trees (Aged 12-16 yrs) and around 34 of them will be translocated from Bauxite road Kumaraswamy layout to Peeranwadi lake. The first tree was translocated on Monday, May 13, 2019.

Forest/Police/HESCOM/Zilla Panchayat/City Corporation & Group of Industrialists of Belagavi/Citizens of Peeranwadi have come together and the work is been overlooked by Kiran Nippanikar who is also rejuvenating the dead Peeranwadi lake.

Jaybharat Foundation has taken the lead along with Polyhydron Foundation, Vega, Belgaum Ferrocast Pvt Ltd, Abhishek Alloys, Sneham International as a group have come forward to undertake the lake rejuvenation work as a CSR activity.

CSR Officer Nitesh Vernekar on behalf of the Industrialist’s group is looking over the project with Kiran Nippanikar who has conceptualized the lake project.

The lake rejuvenation is also a first of its kind in the country, in collaboration with a village administration. The project is aimed at not only beautifying the village and recharging of groundwater table in the village but also provides employment to the villagers apart from giving knowledge of farming to the rural folk at Peeranwadi, Belagavi taluk. Professional help was sought from Aslam of Dharwad who has translocated many trees in Dharwad and Hubbali. 

The new multipurpose project designed by a group led by Kiran Nippanikar is expected to give a new dimension to the tiny Peeranwadi village. It is just not rejuvenation of the lake, but a project which can provide shelter to the stray cattle, encourage fish farming, organic farming and more. When the project was brought before Jai Bharat Foundation of Jayant Humbarwadi and a few more industrialists, they were convinced and ready to fund it.

33 more trees would be translocated in the coming week and would be placed on the side of the lake also a few on the bird’s island planned in the center of the lake.

This is just the beginning and similar steps could be taken to save trees.