An Urban massacre – Cutting down trees causes environmental hazards

LAHORE – The recent floods in Pakistan have been blamed on the deforestation in the Northern Areas. However, experts say that floods are only one aspect of the problem, because the less the number of trees the more effect global warming will have on Pakistan. But on a further micro level, the importance of trees is not being promoted by the government. Ironically while the government’s forest department puts up banners that encourage tree plantation, in an unprecedented move some of the Ferozepur Road trees were cut down on Tuesday in order to accommodate Kalma Chowk flyover construction.
According to the Lahore Bachao Tehreek (LBT), a group of civil society activists and environmentally concerned experts, the trees were over a hundred years old and were a natural and cultural heritage. But trees apart from their aesthetic beauty are not just limited to being heritage; they are also environmentally important, in fact they are the reason why many natural disasters and environmental degradation threats are stunted and an entire ecological system can be destabilized without them.
Lahore’s Shajardost convener Lt Col (R) Ejaz Nazim says, “Not only do trees cut down air and noise pollution, they also reduce ground water pollution while forests generate income by providing employment in forest monitoring sectors such as nurseries, maintenance, and growth.
“Tree roots absorb poisonous water from their roots,” he says. “It is not possible to replace a fully grown tree with a sapling. Trees are our assets”, he added. Imrana Tiwana who has been holding protests regarding the Canal Road issue is infuriated. She represented the Lahore Bachao Tehreek (LBT) along with many other activists in a press conference on Tuesday and is considering filing a writ petition in court within the next couple of days. “The importance of forests is never ending,” she says. “But the more overlooked is the aspect associated with urban areas’ trees. Lahore is an extremely congest city with one of the highest pollution levels in Pakistan.
We appreciate and recognize that the government wants to do something about the problems associated with overpopulation but this is not the way! Cities cannot be planned on an ad hoc basis; every decision is connected to another decision. Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) are made for this purpose,” she further said.
LBT complains that the Punjab Government neither has any EIA nor a public hearing, something that is part of the law. According to EIAs, there is first a feasibility report which is prepared and then it is presented in presence of public, experts and government departments involved. After this if the project is approved (especially by the public), only then can it be continued.
“First of all they are making an inequitable attempt at alleviating the congestion problem because there are several other places in the city where the issue should be addressed,” says Tiwana who herself is an architect. She said, “But we will leave that aside for now. By cutting down trees the government is making a mockery out of its own laws. It is a criminal act which has by-laws all over the world and there are a hundred ways to tackle the situation rather than adopt this way. You can’t have a massacre only in order to get rid of the crime.”
Tiwana further states that planting saplings was not compensation as it took about 35 years for a tree to mature. Trees were known to absorb about 140 pounds of pollution per day and with Lahore having one of the highest pollution levels in the country it became as easy to understand as an equation of two and two equals four. “This scale of destruction cannot be replaced,” she says. Earlier government officials in various departments concerning the Canal Road project claimed that the 150-year-old trees were “old and decaying” and spread disease, whereas LBT refutes the claim, saying it was nothing of that sort.
Activists have even blamed that the timber mafia involved was interested only in getting wood. Urban forests experts say urban trees were integral even more than rural forests because the urban level of pollution was so high that trees seemed as the only solution. Shajardost claims while Berlin (Germany) had about 45 percent area under urban rain forests, Lahore had only about three percent and that too was being decimated. “Besides that”, they say, “There are many rare trees (about 20 different species) that were disappearing at an alarming rate.”
“No one is against progress or development,” concludes Tiwana, “But any development project has a direct impact on environment and therefore on people’s life quality.”