How social media is being used to build bridges between people and urban biodiversity Premium

Discover how social media influencers in India are using platforms like Instagram to raise awareness about urban biodiversity.

In 2019, the viral #50trees on Twitter (now X) got people across India to begin documenting trees in their cities. Among them was a Delhi-based law officer, Chandan Tiwary, who until then had been “tree-blind.” The then 40-year-old quickly realised there was a lack of information on trees in Delhi. “Trees can teach so much about a city’s cultural history. I felt this gap had to be addressed,” he says. And so, Tiwary started an Instagram page, @delhitrees, to build bridges between people and trees. Today it has become a community of almost 5,000 people.

Down south, digital marketing consultant Ashwathi Jerome, who was back in her hometown, Kochi, in 2020, was always interested in studying the intersections between cultural history and ecology, and using trees to learn about the city’s history. She noticed a similar gap as Tiwary. “It was surprising to know that there are no comprehensive books covering the nature of Kochi as a whole,” she says. During the lockdown, she started the Instagram page @treesofcochin to build a knowledge base for interested people.

For more than a decade, social media has been used to raise voices against legal and illegal construction projects that harm urban biodiversity. Now, there is an interesting shift, with people turning to social media to talk about the flora and fauna around them. “I have noticed that since COVID-19, more people have been using social media to mobilise citizen awareness about urban biodiversity. During the lockdown, learning about nature provided mental relief and that trend seems to have continued,” says researcher and author Harini Nagendra, who leads Azim Premji University’s Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability.

She feels that when people engage with public parks and biodiversity, either through book clubs, nature walks or social media, it becomes difficult to use the space for infrastructure projects or land capture. “Policymakers also appreciate the importance of green spaces. Social media has a very positive amplifying effect, which can be useful,” Nagendra adds.

For people such as Tiwary and Jerome, it’s not just about sharing a picture or two online but about equipping people with a “tree lens”. People pass by trees every day without a second glance. By sharing information, these creators hope to build familiarity through awareness.

The lack of familiarity is also what drove author and filmmaker Pradip Krishen to dive deep into trees and related ecology. A few years ago, he realised he had no idea about the tree standing by the gate of his house in Delhi. It had been there for about 30 years. “This sudden realisation sparked a curiosity to learn not just about that particular tree but the trees all over Delhi,” Krishen says. This led to him publishing his book, Trees of Delhi: A Field Guide, in 2006.

“Learning about trees is like doing giant jigsaw puzzles, you never know what surprising information you might come across. I saw a tree in Delhi’s Sunder Nursery that no one around me could identify and I finally found it in Sydney, Australia. It turned out to be a carrotwood (Cupaniopsis anacardioides), endemic to New South Wales,” Krishen recalls.