'Urban systems should ensure environmental safety'

Mohammad Zubair plants sapling at lawns of Governor House

Governor Mohammad Zubair has said that big cities like Karachi can no longer flourish without proper mass transit systems to facilitate the residents, but at the same time such urban systems should ensure safeguarding the environment.

Zubair stated this on Tuesday while talking to a 10-member delegation of the National Forum for Environment and Health (NFEH) and CSR Club of Pakistan. The delegation was jointly led by NFEH President Mohammad Naeem Qureshi and CSR Club President Anis Younus.

He said that mitigation measures are essential to lessen the harmful effects on the environment due to the construction of mega projects, including mass transit systems. Such mitigation measures should include plans to plant a greater number of trees and plants than lost originally due to construction activity in the city.

"There is no alternative as a city like Karachi has to build roads, highways, flyovers, underpasses and mass transit systems for development and to facilitate its residents," Zubair said, adding that such activity should be carried out in a sustainable manner so to conserve the environment.



The governor was of the view that environmental laws, rules and regulations should not be implemented at once in the Third World countries in the same stringent and strict manner as being done in the developed part of the world.

The governor was informed that the NFEH and its allied organisations had been participating in an ongoing plantation drive in the city under the patronage of the commissioner to increase tree cover in the city that had been dwindling at a fast pace. The plantation campaign is being run with an aim to plant over 50,000 local species in the city in the next two months.

Later, the governor himself planted a dinner sapling at the lawns of Governor House as part of the ongoing plantation campaign being conducted with support of NFEH.