Colourful eyesores: Citizens want more trees, less billboards

Residents held peaceful rally to protest cutting of trees in Karachi

KARACHI: ‘Plant trees, remove billboards’, chanted residents at a protest on Sunday against the rampant cutting of trees in Karachi at Teen Talwar.

The Public Interest Law Association of Pakistan (Pilap), which is running a campaign against illegal billboards and mass cutting of trees in Karachi in collaboration with Mera Karachi, launched a peaceful protest to stop the destruction of trees in the city.

Architect Arif Belgaumi termed the billboards in Karachi a ‘disease’. He said that all the trees have been trimmed to give space to billboards. “We don’t want these billboards, we want trees,” he said, adding why it was so easy to sacrifice a tree just because someone wanted to sell a product.



Pilap president Saad Amanullah Khan said they were ready to file a petition to stop tree-cutting in the city and also for the implementation of the Supreme Courts’ order to take down all illegal billboards across the city by June 30.

Environmentalist Tofiq Pasha said cutting one tree was like taking life of one human. “If you cut one tree, it means you kill one of my brothers,” he explained, adding that these trees not only provide shade, which cools down the earth, but they also purify the air.

Civil society activist Naeem Sadiq said they wanted all the polluters to pay tax. He said that those who drive cars and run factories must pay for every pound of carbon dioxide emission, so that pollution is discouraged. With this, he said that driving cars would be discouraged and the government would be compelled to provide decent transportation for citizens.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 30^th, 2016.