“Somewhere it struck me, it’s my home from where the trees are going. That is why I am trying to bring the awareness in the urban crowd about what has to be done, why trees have to be cared for in the urban area. You can live without your mobile, you can live without your car, you can live without your home, but you cannot live without your breath.”Vijay Nishanth, tree doctor
Meet Vijay Nishanth.
The former computer science engineer has dedicated his time and efforts to help protect Bengaluru’s tree cover. Realising soon that there needed to be a ground-up approach to regaining the city’s green cover, Vijay has been working for over a decade along with his NGO Project Vruksha foundation towards this end.
What Even Is a Tree Doctor?
Vijay says that he is stumped when people ask him about his profession.
“I really don’t know what to say. I am basically a Bengaluru boy who grew up in Jayanagar surrounded by trees. Later, I had my own business and I was doing well but somewhere I felt like my home is getting destroyed. I saved some money and decided to go full-time into this. While we also care for individual trees that have been damaged, poisoned or contracted some disease, I work with the government and am committed to opposing projects that are anti-environment, like the steel flyover few years ago and the recent elevated corridor proposal for Bengaluru,” he said.
According to Vijay, urban arrogance and the development agendas are the biggest threats to Bengaluru’s greenery.
“Biggest threat is the development only. The urbanisation that is happening. So that has been a big threat in the urban area actually. This is urban arrogance actually, people are not thinking about where their breath is coming from. It baffles me,” he said.
He Makes His Own Medicine
Vijay uses both organic remedies as well as chemical cures for the best results. He and his team also refer to Vruksha Ayurveda or ancient Indian tree science to find some forgotten miracle treatments.
“The medicines I use are fungicides, insecticides, I do Ayurvedic (treatment) also. Sometimes, I use beeswax, orange oil, natural base, I try to give Jeeva Amrutha, where I use cow dung, urine, jaggery, pulses – I mix all these things to give nutrition to the root part and everything. Neem oil is for basic treatment of infections,” he said.
Vijay said that he was using a combination of foreign treatments and Indian science to get the best results.
“I am trying to combine foreign and Indian medicines when it comes to flora. India was very, very good with and the understanding of the flora. So, I’m trying to use both the methods,” he said.
Turns out, trees are just like us and can suffer from a variety of ailments: fungal infection, insects infestation, root rotting, damage due to acidifying and much more.
A Tree Census of Jayanagar
After months of labour, Vijay and his team have been able to conduct a tree census of over 8,000 trees in one ward of Bengaluru, Jayangar. This information has been made available to the public to use.
“What we have done is that we have captured where it is, what it is, what is its health condition, how does it look, girth, height, and is any tree facing a problem, all this has been digitised. You can see who has tagged it, which area, which position, species name,” he said, explaining that they were handing over this information to the city’s civic agency, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) to take forward.
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