Saving trees in Tamil Nadu

DW (English)

Arborists are specialists dedicated to the health and longevity of trees. We meet one who grew up in India’s eco-village of Auroville, known for its reforestation initiatives, and turned his childhood love of forests into a profession.

Transcript

00:00They look like lumberjacks, kitted out with heavy chainsaws, harnesses, fuel canisters

00:08and helmets. But rather than felling trees, these men are on a mission to save them.

00:16Here in the South Indian township of Auroville, every tree counts. That's why a homegrown

00:22team of experts tends to its greenery.

00:25When I was young, my father had a friend who was starting to build tree houses. So as a

00:31sample they built one in our backyard. There's such a different view and experience that

00:38you get being up there and feeling the wind blowing on you and feeling the breath of the

00:43tree. That's something I feel to this very day.

00:46Bhagirath Prakash cares for Auroville's trees together with Jonas Sushanik, the founder

00:52of maintenance company Tree Care. They both grew up here and witnessed the community's

00:57reforestation efforts turn this once barren region to a lush green landscape. The transformation

01:04instilled in them a love for nature, which they turned into a career.

01:09The profession arborist or arboriculture, it comes from the Latin word arbor, which

01:17is tree. And so we are tree professionals. We are, I think, how I see it is that we provide

01:27a bridge between nature and our urban environment.

01:33In the last decade, the state of Tamil Nadu, where Auroville is located, has lost thousands

01:38of trees to cyclones. These are growing more frequent due to human-induced climate change.

01:43A powerful storm in 2011 wreaked havoc in resident Agathe Fokweze's yard. She was distraught

01:50by the thought of having to fell her favourite tree.

01:53It was during the cyclone. In the morning, all the garden, it was completely destroyed.

02:03And I am going to the swimming pool to check how is it. And I saw this tree, who was completely

02:14cutting in two parts. And I say, it was very large. You know, you see that? It's grown

02:22from 2011. And it is there. It was the same. It was completely open there. From there,

02:32completely at the end. It's for me absolutely impossible to imagine we have to cut this

02:39tree.

02:41Luckily, the experts at Tree Care had a solution.

02:44We did our research. We try and figure out what's the best way of going about it. And

02:50we finally settled on a bracing method that is quite popular also in Europe, using threaded

02:57rods. We actually drilled through the entire tree with a really long drill bit and inserted

03:08a threaded rod, created some metal plates to basically force that closure again.

03:20But even with their best efforts, arborists can't save every tree. They typically come

03:25into the picture once it is already affected by illness or damage.

03:31Even though trees can be surprisingly adaptive in urban environments, they are often susceptible

03:36to disease and root damage.

03:39Arlen Lascaux is an Auroville-based arborist specialised in the management of urban trees.

03:45He advocates preserving mature trees in new building developments.

03:50I am actually going and looking at the trees on the site to look at how long these trees,

03:55each individual tree will be there for. I plot them on a map so that it can be integrated

04:00in architects' drawing. They're all geo-located. We're looking at their health, looking at

04:05their condition, their structural condition. We're looking at how rare they are, how old

04:10they are, how long they are going to be there for, how much longer they're going to be there

04:14for. And based on all of these factors, you can essentially grade them.

04:19This approach helps boost urban green trees' resilience to the stresses of a changing climate

04:24such as drought, as well as to pollution and a loss of biodiversity in the urban ecosystem.

04:30Auroville's tree doctors are always on the lookout for early warning signs of stress.

04:35Here's another clear sign that this tree is dying back. All these shoots are actually

04:41from the same tree. It's coming from the roots. And these are stress shoots. As the top of

04:47the tree, the canopy is dead, it needs to find a new source of energy. And so it's shooting

04:54out all these new epichromic shoots in a last-ditch attempt to create a new canopy for itself.

05:01Tree Care trains aspiring arborists, teaching them how to adapt scientific techniques used

05:05in different parts of the world to local conditions. It's Jonas Sushanik's hope that this new crop

05:11of practitioners will help spread a sensitive approach to tree maintenance well beyond the

05:17treetops of Auroville.

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