he Slender Loris, also known as kaadu paapa in Kannada, is an elusive primate that lives on the trees in Bangalore. Slender Lori are small, furry, squirrel-sized creatures that are arboreal and nocturnal. These hard to spot urban loris have a rich history of living amongst Bangalore's once dense tree canopies. Avenue trees in Bangalore once provided the much needed overlap in #branching that Slender Lori need to move from one tree to another in search of food and rest.
In the past decade, over 50,000 large trees were felled in the city to make way for infrastructure projects such as road widening and the metro. In the peri urban areas surrounding the city as well, vast expanses of orchards have been cut to make way for the ever expanding city. These orchards were connected to the inner city parks and to the avenue trees thereby creating a wildlife corridor to facilitate the movement of the Slender Loris. However, due to the felling of these trees, the wildlife corridors have been destroyed which has been detrimental to the survival of the Slender Loris in the city.
The elite envision the city as 'modern' and androcentric with wide roads, privatized streets, metros, tall buildings, lakes with walking paths, and parks with carefully curated foreign species of plants. This vision of the city comes at high costs of destroying natural foliage, permanently altering the urban ecosystem, threatening the survival of species like the Slender Loris and excluding swaths of people from accessing urban commons. Unfortunately, it is this very imagination of the elite that takes precedence over any other vision of what the city space can be.
In the past decade, over 50,000 large trees were felled in the city to make way for infrastructure projects such as road widening and the metro. In the peri urban areas surrounding the city as well, vast expanses of orchards have been cut to make way for the ever expanding city. These orchards were connected to the inner city parks and to the avenue trees thereby creating a wildlife corridor to facilitate the movement of the Slender Loris. However, due to the felling of these trees, the wildlife corridors have been destroyed which has been detrimental to the survival of the Slender Loris in the city.
The elite envision the city as 'modern' and androcentric with wide roads, privatized streets, metros, tall buildings, lakes with walking paths, and parks with carefully curated foreign species of plants. This vision of the city comes at high costs of destroying natural foliage, permanently altering the urban ecosystem, threatening the survival of species like the Slender Loris and excluding swaths of people from accessing urban commons. Unfortunately, it is this very imagination of the elite that takes precedence over any other vision of what the city space can be.
This must be altered through efforts such as- protesting large scale projects like road widening and the construction of the peripheral ring road, promoting public transport, demanding safe and accessible infrastructure for women, trans folx, non binary persons and people with disabilities and much more. These efforts have proven successful in the past so let us not stop now.
