Ask a city official for a ballpark figure on how many trees are there in the corporation’s 15 zones, and they shrug. Ask them to guess which species most trees belong to, and they say, “We have no data.”These replies clash with the spirit of the state’s urban green policy, drafted by the Green Tamil Nadu Mission (GTM), which pushes for counting and maintaining trees. The policy has three key targets. First, tree canopy should cover 30% of every urban neighbourhood; every resident should see at least three mature trees at home or work; and lastly, the maximum distance between two green spaces in a city should be 300m.The lack of data makes it hard to measure progress, and several city pockets clearly fall short. While areas such as Adyar, T Nagar and Besant Nagar have dense canopy, there’s little in Vyasarpadi, Royapuram and Royapettah.Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) last counted trees between 2017 and 2020. Using geospatial technology, the survey counted 2.48 lakh trees across 15 zones and 432.4 sq km. Between May 2021 and Oct 2026, GCC and other govt bodies say they planted 5.69 lakh saplings in schools, colleges and other public spaces. However, no department knows what happened to these saplings. Data show 37% of the saplings were planted in the southern zones.Civic officials blame rapid, unplanned urbanisation. “We focus on blue-green areas, along waterbodies and canals, and institutions such as educational institutions, govt offices or state highways,” a GTM official said. The agency coordinates planting with local bodies and state agencies. “We cannot target core urban areas due to underground cables and pipelines,” he added.Research suggests the city needs to move faster. In 2026, a study by Anna University’s Centre for Climate Change and Disaster Management put Chennai in a “high-priority” zone and called for immediate urban forestry measures. It found that only 6,634.52 hectares of the city (15%) had green cover, and that 2,015.32 hectares could be added.Chennai district forest officer V A Saravanan said the forest department supplies saplings to civic bodies and farmlands, and rangers help protect and maintain them. Environmentalists said the city must first protect the trees it already has. “In several places, cable wires wrap tree trunks and posters hang from nails,” said T D Babu, a trustee of Nizhal, a non-profit organisation working on urban greenery. “Concrete and pavements cover the base of trunks, leaving the roots no room to breathe.”GCC commissioner G S Sameeran said people who damage trees on govt land face a ₹15,000 fine, and unauthorised felling carries a penalty of up to ₹1 lakh. Each zone has a park overseer authorised to collect fines, and zonal officers have been told to protect tree cover, he said.A new census is coming, assistant conservator of forests R Mahendran said. The govt joined hands with TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute, formerly Tata Energy Research Institute) for it. “We will first build satellite imagery of the green cover, then do ground truthing, which is where the trees are actually counted,” Mahendran said.
