How not to save a forest: Lessons for Hyderabad from Chennai’s Guindy national park

On May 15, after a public outcry against the felling of trees in Hyderabad’s Kancha Gachibowli the previous month, a committee appointed by the Supreme Court submitted a report advising that the 400-acre stretch be declared forest land.

The history of how an urban forest inhabited by blackbuck was protected in the heart of Chennai could prove useful to those who care about the future of Hyderabad’s Kancha Gachibowli forest.

The Guindy Forest in Chennai greatly enhances the green cover of the city. The benefits of urban forests in mitigating heat and reducing air pollution as well as providing spaces for biodiversity are apparent.

But Guindy also offers lessons about the pitfalls of creating an isolated forest in the midst of the city, cut off from the traditional uses that it had served for centuries.

The 683-acre Guindy Forest is among India’s smallest National Parks, a dwindling example of a “tropical dry evergreen forest”.

The Guindy Forest was first protected as a reserve forest in 1910, as part of the Madras governor’s “country house”. In 1958, Raj Bhavan handed over 595 acres of the 1262-acre forest to the state Forest Department.

Though The Hindu reported in 1957 that a National Park had been proposed, the site was still being called the Guindy Park Reserve Forest at that time both in government documents and conversation.

The Forest Department briefly proposed dividing the forest into a sericulture area and a deer park – but this was turned down by an ad-hoc committee of environmentalists and government officials that had been formed to advise the government at the time of the transfer.

Instead, a children’s park was established in a corner.

Some cautioned against too much change in the space. “True, Guindy may not have been proclaimed a sanctuary but for many years plants and animals enjoyed partial protection there” since it was part of the Raj Bhavan grounds, wrote M Krishnan, an environmentalist on the ad-hoc committee.

As an open, unfenced area, Chennai residents would wander in and out all the time. The forest was part of the larger cityscape.

Around the same time, plans were prepared to establish what soon came to be called the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras. Administrators were negotiating to use between 170 and 420 acres of the 1,262 acres of forest land that was part of the Raj Bhavan estate. In the end, the institute was given 383 acres.

The need to preserve the Guindy forest became more urgent in the 1960s and ’70s as a chain of memorials and institutions were established in and around it. For many, the new Cancer Institute campus in 1974 adjacent to the IIT main gate was the last straw

Two events prompted the conversion of Guindy from a Reserve Forest to a National Park. The first was the visit in 1969 by members of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the global organisation working for nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. They spoke to administrators at the Central level about the need to protect Guindy.

The Guindy Park Reserve Forest, they said, presented an “unusual opportunity for aesthetic, educational and scientific benefits by which intelligent management can take advantage to enhance the pleasure and to yield durable benefits to the people of India and their visitors from abroad. It can only be hoped that the community will also seize this opportunity and protect the park as a precious heritage for enjoyment now and for future generations.” The Forest Department took note of this.

The second event was former prime minister Indira Gandhi’s personal desire to protect environmental resources. The 1972 Wildlife Protection Act provided a framework to define various levels of wildlife protection in India. The Emergency in 1975-’77 was an opportunity for unilateral decision making without legislation.

In 1976, after inaugurating the Kamaraj memorial in the area, Indira Gandhi met with members of the World Wildlife Fund and the Madras Snake Park Trust. Pointing to the Cancer Institute’s new campus, they insisted that Guindy needed greater preservation.

The Cancer Institute and Tamil Nadu government had earlier insisted that the facility had been built on barren land. But the delegation told Gandhi that this could not be allowed. The Central government evicted the institute, at that time partially built.

The granting of National Park status to Guindy Forest in 1977 increased the potential for it to receive funds from the Centre and greater protection. As 83 more acres were added from the adjoining Raj Bhavan to the National Park, the Forest Department fenced the borders to protect the flora and fauna.

Conversely, this has turned Guindy into an ecological island. While rescued animals were reintroduced and injured deer were cared for, the change in status has led to restrictions on entry and regulation of usage. Where people who lived along the forest used it for daily activities such as cattle grazing, defecation or for collecting forest produce, the fences and guards prevented this. Walking trails are maintained but permission to enter must be obtained from the warden. Anyone caught inside the forest is punished.

In time, Guindy has drifted out of public awareness in Chennai. It no longer serves as a source of livelihood and nourishment as it had for centuries. It is no longer a space of leisure through which students can accidentally wander.

Of course, ecological protection is a necessity in a world where the built environment is taking over cities. The conservation of natural environments and flora and fauna is essential. However, the method employed in Guindy was top-down.

The story of Guindy’s preservation presents a lesson Kancha-Gachibowli forest of Hyderabad. It should prompt those in power not to turn this land into an area of elite or bureaucratic control.

Nandan Kaushik has studied history and cities, and is passionate about his hometown, Chennai.