Pollen and Islamabad

The need now is to get rid of the invasive paper mulberry plant without any further excuse or delay.

Spring in Islamabad is surprisingly long this year and whilst this is good news in some ways, it is proving exceedingly bad for those unfortunate enough to be allergic to the pollen of the legions of paper mulberry trees, so thoughtlessly introduced to green up the capital city soon after its initial construction.

Native to Japan, Taiwan and Thailand, Broussonetia papyrifera, as the species is botanically called, has turned Islamabad into the pollen capital of the world: it is estimated that 90 per cent of these paper mulberry trees are male and they are responsible for the astronomical pollen count which, during spring, regularly exceeds 40,000 per cubic metre. A pollen count of 15,000 per cubic metre is considered dangerous for allergy sufferers, a fact which speaks for itself.

The Capital Development Authority (CDA), over recent years, has made a number of very hit-and-miss attempts at reducing the number of this dangerously invasive species. However, it has not undertaken a serious eradication programme for reasons best known to the CDA itself. Thus, allergy sufferers in the city continue to pay a dreadful price in health and wealth as treatment can be quite expensive in the long term.

Extremely widespread throughout the capital area itself and spreading even further by naturally dispersed seed, this species was originally planted by way of aerial seed dispersal via helicopter. This project was initiated without obtaining appropriate background information and now, it has become very difficult to control. Unlike many other tree species, it is not simply a matter of cutting the trees down as felling the main trunk actively encourages the widespread, shallow root system to retaliate by sending up new shots all over the place. Suddenly, where there was previously just one tree, there are now dozens.

This does not mean that paper mulberry cannot be wiped out — it can. However, such a programme is extremely labour intensive and, therefore, costly to run for the many months, perhaps even years, necessary for it to be 100 per cent effective. While it is true to say that the CDA is always strapped for cash — largely due to serious mismanagement and misuse of available funds — if its officials could be bothered to do their homework on paper mulberry, they would discover that an eradication programme could be self-financed and even profitable. Perhaps, its profitability aspect will encourage them.

Paper mulberry gets its common name from the fact that in East Asia, its bark is traditionally used in the papermaking industry. Once stripped of the bark, it can also be made into cloth. The wood itself brings a high price on the timber market as smaller branches can be sold off as much-needed fuel wood.

Some 50 years after its introduction, it is pointless to continually bemoan the arrival of paper mulberry in Pakistan. This nasty species is also well established in Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, the Murree area and Chitral. The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources listed the tree as “undesirable” as it kills off indigenous flora at a frightening rate. Hence, the need now is to get rid of the paper mulberry plant without any further excuse or delay.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 20^th, 2013.