Towards a green Pakistan

As part of his admirable Green Pakistan Programme Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif planted, at a special ceremony last Thursday, a sapling at the Prime Minister's Secretariat. As per the plan, over a five-year period 100 million trees are to be planted in various parts of the country, and forest areas reclaimed and developed. Wildlife habitats are also to be protected and better managed. The federal government has allocated Rs 3.5 billion for the purpose, and the provinces are to make matching grants. Meanwhile, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government is already halfway through its 'one billion trees tsunami' campaign. As if to avoid any claim of replication, right at start the government had said the idea of the PM's programme is based on the 'Great Green Wall Programme' of China, thereby emphasising it had nothing to do with the KP's effort. In any case, what is important is that a vital environmental issue is finally getting due attention. Trees, as we know, help prevent soil erosion in hilly areas - the main cause of recurring flashfloods and landslides in northern areas - and of course, they are the best bet against environmental pollution and climate change.
As welcome as the initiative is, much depends on how effectively it is to be implemented. For, plantation drive is not something new. It has been a longstanding tradition for provincial forest departments to launch annual tree plantation campaigns. That has not helped because of lack of proper after-care. If that is not bad enough, no serious effort has been made to protect even the existing tree cover. On the one hand, there is hardly any check on the timber mafias' activities and on the other hand, wanton cutting of trees has gone on in cities to make way for infrastructure/commercial projects. In Lahore, for instance, many old trees were either uprooted or marked for cutting to facilitate construction of a signal-free corridor as well as the Orange Line Train project. Thanks to civil society activists, the issue was brought before the Lahore High Court, and consequently the provincial government was forced to acquire special machinery to transplant old trees to new locations. The situation in Karachi is even worse. Many priceless trees have been destroyed without a care for environmental or aesthetical considerations. Even the mangrove forests, maintaining the area's ecological balance and sustaining several species of flora and fauna, have not been spared. A large section of the forests has been cleared for real estate and industrial projects.
It is about time the PM's Green Pakistan Programme took a holistic view of the situation. In addition to planting trees along canals and roadsides as well as various forest areas in the provinces, it must be ensured that the old trees in cities are preserved, too. It is good to note that the ministries of climate change and science and technology have been tasked to oversee regular stock taking of deforestation and forest degradation on a periodic basis and produce annual reports. The survey also needs to include an inventory of old trees in cities like Karachi and make the findings public too so that civil society can keep a vigilant eye and prevent provincial or city authorities from cutting them on one pretext or the other.