Message from Hasiru Usiru

Reproduced from a post by Leo Saldanha of ESG. Please extend your support and participate.

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Dear All,

As noted below there is a plan to meet at the office of the Commissioner
BBMP at 3 pm on Friday, 27 July 2007. This is a meeting of the Hasiru
Usiru network to find out why the BBMP is going back on the commitment
it gave the Court two years ago that it would not fell trees in
Bangalore except in consultation with citizens, though the order
actually mentioned Hasiru Usiru and petitioner ESG. As you are aware
almost all the lovely large roadside trees in Banglore centre have been
cleared for felling in violation of the court order.

I strongly urge everyone concerned about such unnecessary destruction of
the trees of Bangalore to please attend this meeting. Neville is
coordinating the logistics and his contact no is 9880370291.

Assuming that those keen on protecting trees in Blore also are
interested in protecting its waterbodies, I suggest that we make some
time after the meeting and initiate a process of questioning the ongoing
privatisation of tanks in Bangalore. Ostensibly undertaken to protect
waterbodies, this initiative of Lake Development Authority has actually
turned out into a process of farming out tanks in prime locations to
builders and hoteliers. This will most certainly destroy the ecological
functions of these waterbodies and render them into sterile showpieces
to be enjoyed for a high entrance fee (Rs. 30 per visit) or worse,
leased out as private enclaves of hoteliers as in the Hebbal tank case.
Such a move is fundamentally violative of the order for which the LDA
was constituted and of various Supreme Court decisions, the most recent
being in the Intellectual Forum vs TTD Tirupathi case.

Kindly take this initiative very very seriously and do everything
possible to attend this meeting. Failure to do so will only enhance our
capacity to write obituaries of such habitats, especially on these lists.

Leo Saldanha