Human Intervention for Protecting Urban Green Cover: Case of Nagpur, India

Abstract

The important roles played by green spaces are social, economic, cultural and environmental aspects of sustainable development. Indian urban areas are developing at a very fast pace; simultaneously there is a rapid growth in population too, which impacts the ratio of demand and supply of basic services resulting to sustainability issues. This influences the interfaces between urbanization, population and the environment, as the surroundings are at the receiving end, leading to overexploitation of natural resources especially breathing spaces as parks, gardens and small forests on the name of infrastructural development. The situation augments due to absence of citizen participation in urban governance especially Urban Local Bodies (ULB). Though the 74 th Constitution Amendment Act in India has given this opportunity to strengthen the links between the citizens and local democratic governance by way of public participation, the ground realities are different reducing the transparency of accountability of ULB. Based on this, the paper presents the case study of city of Nagpur, 2 nd capital of state of Maharashtra, India, how environmental NGOs and citizens fought an eleven month struggle, venture to save a green patch of Nagpur, the Bharat Van from the clutches of local government bodies saving the ill effects on environment. This study is an attempt to highlight the necessity of an integrated approach regarding that the planning, monitoring, designing and maintaining of urban green spaces is required for improving the environmental sustainability in cities in different countries.