Flowers and thistles

Just living is not enough; one must have sunshine, freedom and flowers. Like everywhere else in the world, Pakistanis too love to have flowers, green plants and cacti in their gardens and inside their drawing rooms and living rooms. Now there are reports that some imported plants are causing health issues for people and are harmful to local species. This is happening because of planting foreign plants in the country without taking into account factors such as whether the imported plants can grow in the local soil and whether they will harm the local flora and fauna.

Punjab government officials, however, say the exporting countries provide necessary information on feasible environment, soil and protection measures. The government takes into account these factors while allowing import of foreign plants. Since displaying expensive foreign plants and flowers is a status symbol, the import of foreign plants and flowers has increased manifold in recent years. A few plants cost as much as Rs250,000 to Rs300,000. This trend has resulted in increasing the prices of imported varieties. But people forget that some imported plants could harm the local soil, flora and fauna and create health issues for humans as well as animals.

Eucalyptus trees were planted in Karachi without caring about the fact that these trees absorb much subsoil water. Also, these trees are oily, so if one tree catches fire it can spread to other trees quickly. Karachi is a city with scarce sweet water and little rain, so it was inadvisable to plant eucalyptus here. The only positive point was that it did not need much care.

Some people have crazy ideas about providing nutrition to the poor. In the recent past, a film had been produced in a neighbouring country making a case for growing fruit trees along both sides of railway tracks. The film based on a crazy idea met with a miserable fate. 

Published in The Express Tribune, July 25^th, 2019.

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