If the civil society had won their argument with the Punjab government on their objections to cutting down the trees lining Canal Road and the Kalma Chowk Interchange, perhaps there would be more of a feeling of security among environmentalists and others that the government was interested in the preservation of the ecological system. However the issues addressed by the civil society under the umbrella of the Lahore Bachao Tehreek (LBT) were only confined to one city, and the issue of cutting down trees for development projects and deforestation is something that is prevalent all over the country.
The fact that there is a lack of legislation meant to preserve trees and plants has led to a major decrease in the area of forests in Pakistan. The Forestry Sector Resource Management is constrained by a lack of adequate financial resources, a long term gestation period, the erratic and short supply of irrigation water to irrigated plantations, quickly-multiplying human and livestock population, especially in the high hills and sub-mountainous Pothohar watersheds, lack of inundation in the riverain forests and the precipitating resource protection problems.
An official told Pakistan Today on condition of anonymity that in the Murree Hills, the Upland Environmental Rehabilitation Project and in Pothohar, the Punjab Forestry Sector Development Project had long since adopted “a participatory approach to involve the stakeholders in decision-making and sustainable development and management of forestry sector resources”.
Despite these small-time efforts to try and show that they are doing something in order to preserve forests, protection continues to be a serious problem because of a lack of legislative measures against the timbre mafia and habitual forest offenders. Hundreds of the thousands of forest offence cases continue to remain pending in courts, awaiting trial. The appointments of forest magistrates, provision of arms to protection staff, wireless facilities and elimination of rights from forests are some of the outstanding issues under active consideration of the government. But this is not an active process.
Lt Col (r) Ejaz Nazim, convener of the Lahore-based organisation Shajardost, says that felling trees is “massacre”. “Not only do trees cut down on air and noise pollution, especially within the urban areas, they are integral in reducing ground water pollution, and forests generate income by providing employment in forest monitoring sectors such as nurseries, maintenance, and growth. Tree roots absorb poisonous water, besides contributing in several other ways to the ecology of a region,” he said. However, he also points out that replacing a tree that has been cut cannot be done by planting a sapling. This may be a long-term solution because of the high periods of tree gestation. “But if you cut down an entire tree, and replace it with a sapling, we cannot expect to preserve a forest this way. Trees are our assets,” he said.
It is not just forests that grow in the riverain, coastal or mountainous areas that are important. Even urban forests, experts say, are integral, more so than rural area forests in many ways because only they can control the level of pollution.
Shajardost claims that while Berlin, Germany, has about 45 percent area under Urban rain forests, Lahore only has about three percent, and that too is being decimated. Besides that, they say there are many species of rare trees (about 20 different species) that are disappearing at an alarming rate.
It has been estimated that in 2018, the population will be more than double and so will be the increase in demand of forestry goods and services. On the other hand, Pakistan’s forestry sector resources are shrinking every day.
Besides the Canal Road Widening Project and the Kalma Chowk Interchange, which caused many trees to be mercilessly cut down against the civil society’s wishes, even projects such as the Punjab government’s Daanish Schools have come at the cost of reserved forest tree land. The government of Punjab has been careless in hacking down thousands of forest trees to clear ground for the construction of school campuses, thus violating the Forest Act of 1927, enacted to protect the forests of Punjab. For example, in order to reclaim about 150 acres of Chichawatni’s forest plantation alone, the authorities have been determined to chop down 46,000 fully-grown trees.
Similarly, in other protected areas such as Kharian Scrub Forest and Rawalpindi Takht Parri Forest, thousands of trees will be axed to make the land available for school infrastructure.
