S G Neginhal – The Urban Forester

 

S G Neginhal – The Urban Forester

(01 May 1929 to 01 May 2021)

PC: http://www.ypsbengaluru.com/event/wildlife-week-celebration/

After my Masters while I was volunteering for A Rocha India, I came across the book ‘Golden trees, greenspaces and urban forestry’ authored by S. G. Neginhal. Whenever I was in A Rocha office, I would search for the names of trees that I would see around. Later, while I was working in ATREE for compiling a field guide on dryland trees, I remembered this book and thought of adding it to the collection that our lab had. It was not available in stores. Finally, a friend Daniel Sukumar suggested that he knew the author and we could buy it personally from him. 

Daniel spoke to Neginhal sir and fixed and appointment. When I met Neginhal sir, he was in his 80’s, nevertheless when I said I was from ATREE he recollected meeting Savitha Swamy who had worked on urban parks. I was amazed that he still continued to write books despite his age. We were there for buying ‘Golden trees, greenspaces and urban forestry’ book but he said it’s out of print and showed two other books ‘Forest trees of the Western Ghats’ and ‘Sanctuaries and Wildlife of Karnataka’ authored by him. I was disappointed, I wanted golden trees book as I was compiling information for dryland trees of Karnataka. Upon enquiry if there will be a reprint, he said no and suggested the other two books are also equally good. We bought the other books for ourselves and extra copies for our friends. 

Over a period of time, I realized it is these field guides that help non-taxonomists to identify trees, unlike floras. The book ‘Forest trees of the Western Ghats’ immensely helped my colleague and friend Vimhaseno to identify Western Ghats plant species for her doctoral research.

Many of us know that Neginhal sir was responsible for greening of Bangalore with colourful flowering trees. With reckless cutting down of trees, we might end up seeing these trees in his book and not in the real world. Today we don’t have Neginhal sir amongst us, but his knowledge and experience has been transferred into these priceless books. Books that continue to fascinate youngsters into the natural world.