The green city turning grey

Once known for its intriguing green beauty, ‘Islamabad — the beautiful’, is now paying a heavy price for its mega road projects, not only in financial terms but also in terms of environment degradation and at the cost of its greenbelts.
The federal capital once known for its lush green landscapes is now no more different than other messy places of the country. The rapid increase in vehicles, traffic jams and lack of parking spaces has forced the Capital Development Authority (CDA) to widen the roads, denuding the greenbelts and landscapes.
Not so long ago, one could see a green blanket spread over a large area from Shakarparian to Damn-e-Koh and Pir Sohawa. However, rapid urbanization, growth of the real estate sector, especially mushroom growth of housing societies and mega development projects, have resulted in massive deforestation and denudation of greenbelts in a number of sectors. Thousands of trees have been chopped and a number of greenbelts on the avenues have been detached. The widening of IJP Road, Islamabad Expressway and the construction of Jinnah Avenue Interchange, Zero point Interchange, 7th Avenue, 9th Avenue and other multi-storey mega commercial and residential projects has drastically removed greenery.
The CDA allocates two days every year for tree plantation in which hundreds of thousands of saplings are planted, but despite this, green cover of Islamabad, instead of increasing, is decreasing day by day. The residents do not support the development at the cost of tree chopping. They believe that the green cover was a landmark of Islamabad, while mega development could be done anywhere.
A businessman, Obaidullah Anwar, said that he left Karachi owing to the natural beauty of Islamabad and established his business in this city in early 1970s. He said that at that time, the climate of Islamabad was almost the same as of Murree. One could breathe in a fresh and pleasant atmosphere at that time, but now owing to population influx, mushroom growth of traffic, and ultimately the road projects to make the traffic flow fast, the city is losing its natural beauty.
If the construction of skyscrapers was not stopped and felling of trees and elimination of greenbelts and gardens continued under the cover of developmental projects, there will be a time when the green look of Islamabad would give a dry look.
A resident of I-10 sector, Osama Pervaiz, said that CDA needed a long-term plan to tackle the deforestation issues. He said a railway line from Rawalpindi to Islamabad already existed which could be taken up by a private-public partnership for a metro service. “Most countries have tackled traffic congestion with an environment friendly, economically sustainable mode of transport which is also public friendly, considering the health benefits, with reduction of both air and noise pollution. As roads have already reached their maximum width even by international standards, any further widening annually will entail social and health costs to the public,” he said.
An environmentalist, Dr Nosheen, while talking to Pakistan Today, said that development was emphasized more and less attention was paid to the environment. She said that the removal of greenbelts and deforestation was strongly linked to environmental degradation. “The average temperature of Islamabad has increased by 7 to 10 degrees centigrades owing to deforestation,” she said.
The CDA official claimed that during the development of mega road projects, most of paper mulberry was chopped. He said that since the pollen count index for the federal capital was very high, they had to adopt tree-chopping strategy in 2004 to eliminate the culprit species, mainly the paper mulberry tree. Most of the paper mulberry trees were re-planted in and around 7th and 9th Avenues. He clarified that CDA had, in lieu of every chopped tree, had planted another tree. More recently, they planted trees near Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), he said.
“Islamabad was the only planned city of Pakistan and its green character distinguished it from other cities of the country. Today’s green Islamabad is the outcome of laborious and consistent efforts of CDA employees, which they made during the last 50 years in planting, protecting and nourishing the trees in the capital,” he said adding that CDA tried its best not to remove greenbelt areas along avenues but it had to reduce their size to widen the roads.