Usually when it comes to city development or infrastructure expansion, the first damage that happens is to the trees. People usually don't care how many years the trees are old and what they contribute to the environment. They just clear it off to get a neat ground. This has been the case is many countries and this is still the case in many places in India as well. But a few years back when I was travelling to Hyderabad, I noticed people moving trees from one place to another for expansion. But it is not everywhere. I have also seen places where hundreds and thousands of trees gets chopped down for building roads and highways.
Source - Gemini
It can usually take several years for the trees to grow but cutting them just takes a few minutes with the modern tools. When a city is planned people used to worry about having trees in the sides of the roads but that has gone now. Every individual houses also used to have trees and garden in their backyard or the front space. That is also gone now. People would like to utilise the full space with concrete structures. That has been th recent trend.
I'm very happy to read that Japan spends a lot of money and time in relocating trees from one place to another. I read that they spend time to analyse the feasibility first and then they prepare the tree for the relocation. They cannot directly take away the roots and plant it in another location for it to grow. That may not end up successfully. What they do is prepare the roots and create a path for the new destination and then gradually after about a year's time when the tree is fully ready they move it to the new location. They spend a lot of time and money on this but I would say that this is definitely a great effort.
It is not easy to get a well grown tree. I'm not even going inside the fact that trees also have life but what I'm trying to say is that they contribute so much today staying there for centuries. Even if we chop them down and plan a new tree it can take another 100 years to grow and become a giant. So this effort to move the tree as it is, is very much required is what I feel. Hope this is something that every other country thinks about before clearing trees in the path.
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