When trees are gone, stories turn into histories
Photo: ifish.net
Our life is fraught with stories of mission and intermission. Both missions and intermissions are polyphonic. Deleterious missions of destroying the environment of collective well-being through commercializing process call for salvaging mission of social activism. Intermission on the other hand is both a desired and unwanted procedure of action. It is understood both as the deliberation process of our action having to do with environmental degradation as well as our lack of concern amongst other things for the vegetation. It is in the phase of intermission (understood in the second sense) that the depraved stories are woven around the theme of denial which has a direct bearing on deprivation because of the commercial destruction of the trees. We seem to suffer from an untreatable amnesia regarding the importance of trees in our lives. The way trees are being extirpated throughout the world and particularly in Bangladesh is already taking its toll on our physical and mental health, as well as on the ecosystem we live in. Indiscriminate deforestation for the ever-expanding timber industry and overriding importance given to land occupied by trees for the building of commercial structure is aggravating the existing situation. When will we learn that marginalization of trees will precipitate the process of our own marginalization on earth. We try to remain oblivious to it that trees are an integral part of our selves. Such indifference leads us to grey zones where we have psychosomatic problems like "Nature Deficit Disorder." Trees and stories are inextricably linked. Tagore's reference to Shank-chunni or Badam tree as the image of ghost during his childhood help us appreciate the pivotal role played by trees on the development of his intellectual stature. He was so intimately connected to trees that having founded an abode of learning at Shantiniketan he promoted the culture of learning in the soothing lap of trees. One would love to ponder over the fact that but for the fig tree, the enlightenment of Gautam Buddha would be a far-fetched dream. This statement is proposed not to downplay Buddha's exposure to the absolute knowledge of sorrows and salvation, but to make some room for our comprehension that whatever we achieve is the outcome of either direct or indirect contribution of trees. Interestingly, destroying the trees of our living areas we tend to hanker after selected areas of preserved vegetation and water bodies to rekindle our relationship to nature in exchange of money. Although parks (their numbers are infinitesimal) are there inside the city, these areas have been systematically ordered to be without any appeal to our mind. Availability of trees within a specified area called parks; their negligible presence and gradual disappearance from the cityscape compels us to rethink our urban existence. In deforestation not only trees but medicinal plants are also eliminated from the areas under the dominion of human invasion. In today's world our increasing reliance on chemical medicine makes us easy prey to profit-oriented drug industry where the medicinal side-effects are proclaimed addendum to the treatment process. The link between trees and water is indisputable. When we talk about trees it is not only trees which are destroyed rather it is the fresh water as well which is polluted through our unscrupulous actions. A closer look at Buriganga will make my point clear. Moreover, real estate companies and their burgeoning business pose an ominous threat to the land occupied by trees and create a disharmony on the riverbed because of the ever-increasing soil extraction process. This business exists not as a housing solution to those who are in need of a shelter, rather to the immigrants and to those who have become rich overnight because of their prohibited involvement. As these companies are ever-famished for more land, their unbridled business destroys the equilibrium of the city landscape. A journey inside the city will make one thirsty for greeneries as the scowl of the concrete jumble intimidate us relentlessly. Our smoke and dust-ridden city life gasps for fresh air produced by trees. Against, this backdrop some luminaries (either as a person or group) fought for the preservation of the most important element of our environment i.e. trees. Stories of Chico Mendes, Wangari Maathai, Chipko movement and Dandakaranya movement elucidate the point that we should take up the rein instead of making it someone else's onus when the question of environmental conservation arises. Chico Mendes was a rubber-tapper in Brazil and was gunned down by the ranchers who were looking for retaliation as he was a veritable threat to their business. Ranchers were clearing forest areas and Chico along with other tappers was being driven away of the tapping areas as their rubber plantation enclaves were being narrowed down. His death was a protest against the tree-grabbers which still remains as a lesion in our mind. Termination of life was the price that he had to pay for his outspoken position in favour of forests and trees. Despite the extent of vociferous dedication that he showed in his resistance programs, unfortunately he exists today as a mere reference point to the world. The tree-hunters are still at large making hefty profits through their nefarious actions of killing trees unscrupulously. Wangari Maathai is the initiator of an environmental movement in Kenya. She, feeling the urge to make livelihood opportunities for rural people particularly for women, founded the tree-planting programme called GBM (Green Belt Movement) in Kenya. When her relentless efforts to fight desertification in Kenya through tree plantation got impeded by the autocrat Moi government she did not resort to nonchalance. The government's decision to build a sixty-storey structure in Uhuru park met with a vehement protest from Maathai. The government on the other hand pounced on her movement and put obstacles in its way so that she would give in to the wishes of the autocracy. She using the network of funding agencies retorted to the government decision of tree hunting of Uhuru park. Her story exhorts us that people working for the conservation of greenery are always subjected to silencing mechanism to thwart their plans and replace them with the money-making scheme of the tree-hunters. Despite the adversities she held fast to her position of protecting trees from the claws of Moi regime. Chipko movement is another example of local people fighting for the tree lives by a unique measure called tree-hugging. Controversies aside whether it should be called a women's movement or not the movement developed out of Gandhian forest Satyagraha by Sunderlal Bahuguna, Chandi Prasad Bhat along with others for the immediate reclamation of their most intimate companion-trees-in the Himalayan region of Garhwal. Participants were said to have embraced trees to save them from the sharp blades of commercial loggers. Tree plantation program of Dandakaranya movement in Sangamner, Maharashtra, India launched in 2006 by Bhausaheb Santuji Thorat being inspired by the mythological feats of Rama with the help of sage Agastya against the curse of sage Gautam on Dandakaranya forest aimed at transforming the dry and arid region into an abode of green flora. The movement is predicated on the provision of voluntary service for the tree plantation program with a view to changing the dusty dryness into green soaked ambience. It is important for us to grasp that when trees are gone stories are gone as well whether they are ghost stories, lullabies or stories of our existence. In this unabated process, stories turn into histories. So once histories are unleashed the whole world will be an abandoned area of destroyed lives (whether human, tree or animal). We have to slough off the oblivion of overlooking and taking part in the destruction process of trees and other components of nature, which are at human mercy. Untrammeled human consumerism as it is in vogue is the real-life Kraken which will be the conclusion of human chapter on earth. As we are killing more and more trees without contributing to their replenishment for the urban centres they will disappear altogether from the jigsaw puzzle of the world if we are looking at the nearest future only because of our self-immolating myopia. Our insouciance may grow into a huge hole not only in the ozone layer but also in our very existence. That our stories are divided along the line of race, sex and religion is manifested in a film called "Lemon Tree" where a Palestinian woman is depicted struggling against the Israeli government's decision to chop down her lemon garden on the flimsy ground that the groove was a threat to Israeli sovereignty. In response to the case filed, the court declares its verdict to prune if not eliminate it completely. The last sequence shows the newly built wall and her lemon garden razed almost to the ground in the name of so-called pruning. We as human beings with scores of pretext dispatch tree covers out of our sight in the materialization of our antagonistic goals. The receding vegetation because of our crooked actions will result in a bald world uninhabitable not only for us but for our future generation. We have to wake up from the sedated slumber before the nemesis of histories is inflicted on us.
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