Trees get identity cards in Kolkata suburb

Kolkata, Sept 16: Just like humans, trees too now have identity cards in a Kolkata suburb. As part of a project by Konnagar Municipality to evaluate the crucial role trees play in combating climate change, the authorities have issued identity cards for 28 varieties of trees.

"Just like your voter ID card, the tree ID card has details like local name of the species, scientific name, geographical coordinates of its location, photograph, weight and wood density etc.," Environmentalist Abhijit Mitra, who is leading the project, said.

Konnagar Municipality chairman Bappaditya Chatterjee said they have issued 3,000 such identity cards so far which were being hanged on trees. Just by looking at the identity card one can learn what was the contribution of which tree towards climate change, as plants sequester carbon from the environment.

"The first thing for us to live is oxygen, which we get from trees. The second thing which plants do is absorb carbon, but the absorption ratio varies from one species to another and so it is very important for us to map them," Chatterjee said, while claiming this was the first such exercise in India.

Altogether 53 varieties of trees were found in the suburbs located in the neighbouring Hooghly district, about 25 km from here. Around 28 species of them were dominant ones comprising about 70 per cent of the tree population.

Some of them include neem, peepal, banyan, radhachura, krishnachura, tamarind, coconut, betel-nut etc.

PTI