KARACHI:
My house is about ten minutes away from Allama Iqbal Airport, and my neighbourhood used to be filled with trees. I know this because I played under them. Today, the open ground is gone. The trees have been cut down one by one and replaced with concrete, followed by a housing society built on top of it all.
A plan to cut down 11,000 trees was recently approved. Had the Lahore High Court not intervened, those trees would likely have also been chopped off. Whoever approved the plan should be required to explain publicly why such a decision was made. The court has already ordered action against another housing society that removed 14 trees without permission. Despite such instannces, it is unfortunate that this practice continue unabated in a city that is already struggling to breathe. One observation made by the court stood out to me. Environmental measures in Lahore, it noted, are enforced only through compulsion, because the authorities responsible are unwilling to act on their own. That is not merely a finding but an indictment. New developments appearing across the city all seem to follow the same pattern — gated communities, tiled footpaths and attractive facades. What they often lack are trees. Even when saplings are planted, many do not survive beyond a single season, and only a few are replaced.
The airport is where Lahore presents itself to the world, yet that introduction too is dominated by concrete, dust and traffic congestion. A city that requires court intervention to stop the destruction of its own trees has a problem that extends far beyond urban planning.
Maheen Zahra
Lahore
