SC calls for protecting integrity of ecosystem

Top court laments that some view nature as inert repository of resources

ISLAMABAD:

The Supreme Court has observed that the Forest Ordinance 2002 is a beneficial piece of legislation, noting that it seeks to protect the ecological balance and integrity.

A detailed judgment authored by Justice Qazi Faez Isa while hearing appeals against Peshawar High Court (PHC) decision said that the ordinance was enacted to preserve ecological significance, the integrity of the ecological system and to promote the understanding of environmental significance.

“Reduction in forest and tree cover harms ecosystems and consequently the animals, birds and insects dependent on them, and results in the loss of biodiversity,” the ruling said.

A three-judge bench of the apex court led by Justice Isa heard the matter.

The judgement noted that the ordinance was enacted, amongst other reasons, for the protection and conservation of forests in the province and this was done in the public interest.

Pakistan has been denuded of its forests and not nearly enough has been done to protect the remaining forests, it regretted.

Citing an academic-scientific report, the top court said Pakistan lost 14.7% of its forest habitat between 1990 and 2005. And, from 2000 to 2020, the country experienced a net change of 94.8 thousand hectares (4.5%) in tree cover.

"The importance of forests is by now well established. Forests are necessary to promote headwater conservation for the alleviation of floods and water shortages.

Forests aid in the prevention of disasters and provide a stable supply of water (one tree can retain groundwater up to 30,000 liters23), it stressed and warned that denuding land of forests and trees has catastrophic effects including avalanches, flash floods, silting up of rivers, lakes and dams, the accumulation of carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas) and climate change.

“Forests and trees remove carbon dioxide; over a one-year period a mature tree absorbs about 22 kilograms of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and in exchange releases oxygen.”

The court noted that the European Environmental Agency has determined that in a year, 1.3 million trees are estimated to remove more than 2,500 tons of pollutants from the air.

Observing that the ordinance was a beneficial piece of legislation, it said that this important aspect was not considered by the high court before it proceeded to negate the bar of jurisdiction provision (section 92 of the Forest Ordinance).

The judgment stated that climate change was not just a future threat but a present reality. The planet is in crisis and disasters are accelerating disasters.

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"Climatic events of unprecedented severity are being witnessed. The unilateral and unsustainable pillage of the earth’s resources has left humanity, and all other species, vulnerable. Excessive burning of fossil fuels has heated up the earth’s temperature and when forests, which sequester carbon emissions are stripped away, its effect is compounded. Carbon fuel extraction needs to correlate with the available trees, plants and phytoplankton which store emissions."

"The causes of climate change and the catastrophic events that it unleashes are (by now) empirically established, yet the problem is not being addressed with the requisite urgency and seriousness. Simple mitigation measures are also not implemented.

"Carbon emissions, and not trees, have to be cut down. The learned Judges failed to consider that the Forest Ordinance was a beneficial piece of legislation which was enacted to conserve scarce remaining forests.”

The natural world is an epiphany yet the extraordinary bounty of nature and creation’s perfect balance has been disrupted, it further stated and lamented that the warning not to tamper with nature’s balance was not heeded.

“Some view nature as an inert repository of resources to subdue, remove and deplete, and profiteering as their right. ‘As the land becomes impoverished so too does the scope of their vision’.”

The judgement concluded that reverence for the natural world has become peripheral, and emphasised the need for humanity to regain its lost consciousness and its primordial link to nature.

“Humans must assume their responsibility as trustees of the earth and of all of creation; and, not to be deaf and dumb, engulfed in darkness. The trees of the forest are sentient beings and, like human beings, part of the biotic community. In regaining their trusteeship humans also salvage their humanity, and save themselves and their progeny," it added.