A number of concerned citizens participated in a nature walk in solidarity against the proposed development of a city park on a forested land in Tarla Nagal area near Sahastradhara Road on Sunday. The Mussoorie Dehradun Development Authority (MDDA) has proposed to develop a city park at an estimated tentative cost of Rs 70 crore on 12.5 hectare of wooded area in Tarla Nagal on the outskirts of Dehradun city.

According to the proposal, this city park would have various aspects like cycling tracks, adventure sports zone, senior citizens zone and other aspects.

However, concerned citizens point out that this forested area is rich in biodiversity and developing a city park here would not only destroy the biodiversity but also severely damage the environment in the city which is rapidly losing its greenery.

On Sunday, a number of concerned citizens gathered for a nature walk in this wooded area. The citizens raised their voice against the unsustainable plans of MDDA to develop this area which is also a natural habitat to many animal and bird species apart from the flora. “The MDDA should be renamed as Mussoorie Dehradun Destruction Agency as all they do is destroy everything they see.

Tarla Nagal is a beautiful forest area and we would not allow MDDA to destroy it," remarked Karan Kapoor, a member at youth activist group Making a Difference by Being the Difference (MAD).

Citizens from all age groups participated in this walk. A lot of photographers and morning walkers who have been visiting this area since many years shared their experiences about their encounters with wildlife in the area.

This walk was initiated by concerned citizen Ashish Garg and was supported by Reenu Paul from Rajpur Community Initiative,  Paramjit Kakkar from Pramukh, Bharat Sharma from Friends of Doon Society and by members of Citizens of Green Doon among others.  According to Garg, the nature walk elicited a good response from the public.  Concerned citizens, naturalists, birders, environmentalists, representatives of NGOs and eminent citizens walked in the wooded area to know more about it and appreciate the environmental wealth it possesses. The gathering also took a resolution to save this biodiversity rich forested area from non eco-friendly development works like the proposed construction of a city park.

In a city where green spaces have been vanishing at an alarming pace, the plan of the MDDA to turn one of the few remaining green spaces like Tarla Nagal into a city park has been eliciting questions and criticism from concerned citizens.