Several trees in Chennai city have obstructions, including power cables, nails and roots covered by concrete. In a few places, compound walls directly brush against the trunk and tree guards are left unremoved even after trees have grown.
Ask a city official for a ballpark figure on how many trees are there in the corporation’s 15 zones, and they shrug. Data show 37% of the saplings were planted in the southern zones. It found that only 6,634.52 hectares of the city (15%) had green cover, and that 2,015.32 hectares could be added.
Ask them to guess which species most trees belong to, and they say, “We have no data. ” The lack of data makes it hard to measure progress, and several city pockets clearly fall short. 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. A new census is coming, assistant conservator of forests R Mahendran said. “We will first build satellite imagery of the green cover, then do ground truthing, which is where the trees are actually counted,” Mahendran said.
T Nagar and Besant Nagar have dense canopy, there’s little in Vyasarpadi, Royapuram and Royapettah While areas such as Adyar. However, no department knows what happened to these saplings. Research suggests the city needs to move faster. The govt joined hands with TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute, formerly Tata Energy Research Institute) for it. You Can Also Check: Gold Rate in Chennai | Silver Rate in Chennai | Bank Holidays in Chennai | Public Holidays in Chennai | Chennai AQI | Weather in Chennai | Petrol Price in Chennai | Diesel Price in Chennai | CNG Price in Chennai | LPG Price in Chennai