Save green cover of Tirumala

It's quite disturbing tidings that a large number of construction-works are coming up in the forest area between Alipiri and SV Park zone on the slopes of Tirumala hills.( "Growing construction activity in forest are sounds alarm bell",THI, Nov 13). The attempts to cut down thousands of trees, and destroy forests for the construction-works in Tirumala and to urbanise the whole area certainly wreck the rich wealth of fauna and flora besides robbing Tirumala of its marvellous, scenic beauty and serenity. Is too much urbanization followed by rapid industrialisation, transforming our forest and hill-areas into concrete jungles at the cost of environment development?

Nature nurtures and sustains life. Trees are the life-line of humans. If we go on cutting down trees and destroying forests and hills, the dark time is not far off to see the whole green and hilly areas transformed into vast deserts with concrete jungles, resulting in ecological degradation and spelling out ecological disasters and humans under the perennial threat of nature's wrath. Let our virgin forests and majestic hills of Tirumala with their wonderful ecosystem and rich biodiversity and its serene beauty remain untouched by the spectre of urbanisation and industrialisation for the so-called modern development.

"A blessing rests on the house where falls the shadow of a tree". That's how Ruskin Bond, the eminent Indian-English fiction-writer, who is hailed as the champion of ecosystem, voices in one of his short-stories and enlightens the readers about the benefits of trees apart from the hazards of urbanization to the environment. So the more trees we have, the more blessings descend over us.