Madurai young citizens free trees of punishing nails

MADURAI: A young crop of citizens on Sunday carried out a life-saving mission with nail pullers and pliers, ridding trees of nails driven into them mostly for displaying advertisements and party banners, at Tamukkam on Sunday.
The 35-strong group named Vaa Nanba went on pulling 50 to 100 nails off each tree and collected 3 kg of them, which, if left untouched, could have seriously endangered the trees. Vaa Nanba has been volunteering social services for five years and has cleaned up public places, planted saplings, and removed posters that defaced the public walls by putting their Sundays into meaningful use.

Removing nails is apparently difficult and requires painstaking hours, but the group managed to clear around 10 trees off nails, most of which had about 100 nails. The team carried out the drive at Gandhi Museum and Alagarkovil Main Road.

“Mostly, exhibitions advertisements taking place in Tamukkam ground are seen displayed on trees. Though the advertisements disappear over the course of time, nails remain there,” said M C Saravanan of Vaa Nanba. “Nailing trees are bad for their growth. It is not just in some area that we see this trend. Trees mostly in the Tallakulam, Goripalayam and Mattuthavani carry advertisements fastened,” said members.

The officials concerned should step in to prevent such activities. Unless stringent punitive actions in place, the activity cannot be restricted, they said. “The removed nails were given away to a school student who was part of the effort. She will display them in her school in a bid to spread awareness,” Saravanan said.

He urged the youths to come forward and take similar activities to keep the trees in their respective areas free of nails. It would not be possible for them to cover the entire city and people should step up, he said.