SAVE THE FUNAVAA!
Guest post by Ahmed Ikram (Aikey)
While communities in Villimalé are putting themselves on the line to protect century-old Funa trees from being cleared for yet another 17-story concrete tower, wellness businesses along with NGOs that claim to represent the environment but operate comfortably within corporate/neoliberal interests remain silent.
That silence is not neutral. It is a choice.
It is a choice to prioritize image over reality to preserve an Instagram-friendly version of nature while ignoring the destruction happening around us.
Let’s be clear about the current trend. Nature has been stripped down to a “feeling”, something to experience, not defend. It becomes a variety of things. rejuvenation, stillness, analog escapes. A time out. A backdrop. A product.
But real environmental protection is not aesthetic. It is uncomfortably disruptive, and often confrontational. It challenges power. That doesn’t fit with the branding and marketing strategies, so its buried or erased.
While ancient trees are cut down, what’s being sold instead is the traditional knowledge, local identity, feelings of nature and Nature hikes, Villimalé’s remaining green spaces are being packaged to be experienced.
This is extraction. Culture and landscape are used to create this value but when those same ecosystems are under direct threat, the platforms built on them fall silent.
What is taken is visible. What is given back, when it’s needed the most, is nothing.
There is a clear divide:
One side sees nature as a living system worth defending even when that means resistance.
The other treats nature as controlled, curated asset that is designed, to sell, and consume.
One stands in front of the trees.
The other builds experiences around the current dwindling existence.
The insistence on “positivity” is not neutrality. It is protection.
By framing protest as “negative,” silence becomes acceptable.
In reality, this protects business interests: permits, partnerships, and a customer base that wants comfort without confrontation.
The same applies to NGOs that present themselves as environmental advocates while remaining aligned with corporate structures they should be challenging.
In Villimalé, people are fighting to protect what little green space remains before it is permanently replaced by concrete.
Those who continue to profit from the image of nature while refusing to defend it are not neutral actors. They are participants in the system that allows its destruction.
If your “connection to nature” does not include the willingness to defend it when it is under threat, then it is not connection. It is consumption.
The trees do not need branding.
They do not need curated experiences.
They need protection.
#SaveFunaVaa No more greenwashing. Protect what’s left.
#SAVEFUNAVAA No more greenwashing. Protect what’s left.
