Sapling Maintenance

Why?

For over few decades, Chennai has witnessed a great loss in greenery and plantation, because of growing population, that invariably changes the green cover into settled habitat like home, apartment, complexes, etc. Furthermore, recent cyclone Vardah has also devastated large parts of the trees and uprooted many trees. Besides, developmental activities such as the construction of Chennai Metro and making of Smart City have often been carried out at the cost of trees in the Chennai city.

Recent study shows that urbanisation has also dealt a big blow to open spaces in the city. Chennai falls way short of guidelines set by World Health Organisation (WHO) on open space per capita.

Our journey began with a 17-year selfless commitment to the community from a social activist who is also the founder of the Social Work Team Trust (SWOTT).

Plantation is the only Saviour

We at SWoTT are painfully aware of the changes to its city landscape brought about by development and natural calamities. We have witnessed that number of tree planting program have been carried out by government, other NGOs, corporates and educational institutions. Through such programs, number of plants and sapling are being planted, but huge question lies on its maintenance. We could see most of the plants are not guarded or not maintained, therefore resulting in the futile initiative drive.

What we do!

At SWoTT, we do number of sapling and plant plantation programs, in association with several other organizations and education institutions. We take extra effort after plantation, i.e., (a) we maintain a separate team for each lake ensuring that plantation is maintained to its fullest growth; (b) right sapling into right depth; (c) saplings planted on the roadsides are prone to grazing, vehicular interference, and other dangers – so installation of tree guard is done; (d) watering of the sapling is utmost important.