Context

Tree ambulance services are starting up across India, bringing sick plants back to life.

About

What is the concept of ‘Tree Ambulance?

• They are run by botanists, gardeners and tree surgeons and provide free services.
• The work is helping cool down India’s cities by reducing “urban heat islands”.
• These tree ambulances are also playing a role in protecting biodiversity.
• The country’s first tree ambulance was set up in Chennai by the “Green Man of India”.
• In a one-of-its-kind move, Chennai environmentalist Dr Abdul Ghani, has launched a tree ambulance service to provide first-aid service to trees. Tree Ambulance aims to deliver a positive environmental impact by exclusively caring for trees.
• The idea of tree ambulance is to save trees by care for sick ones and help bring uprooted ones back to their feet. 
  

How it helps us?

• Tree loss creates heat islands
• One way the tree ambulance teams are protecting the environment is by tackling the problem of urban heat islands. These occur when trees are lost as cities are built, leaving less shade and moisture to keep people and places cool.
• Heat islands can increase energy costs, greenhouse gas emissions and heat-related illness and death, as well as lead to poorer water quality.
  
• But trees and other plants can counter this by reducing surface and air temperatures. They do this by providing shade and because they help water move into the atmosphere through a process called evapotranspiration – the sum of water evaporating from the land and the leaves of plants.