A view of Margalla Hills. PHOTO: ALI ANSARI
On Wednesday evening, a campaign, “Save the Margalla Hills” was launched by the capital’s residents to stop the federal government from destroying the national park.
“The Margalla Hills National Park is a gift of nature and building tunnels through it will rob it of its natural beauty,” said Margalla Hills Society President Roedad Khan, a former bureaucrat, at the launching ceremony of the campaign.
Rafay Alam, an environmentalist, said the tunnel project would have terrible consequences for the national park. He quoted the Pakistan Wildlife Ordinance 1979, saying that any activity that disturbs the ecosystem of a designated park is not justified.
Citing a recent study, he said the temperature of the capital rose by 4 centigrade owing to the construction of many avenues when Kamran Lashari was the chairperson of the CDA.
A temperature rise, he said, would directly affect the birds in the park. “If you have a national park that is meant to protect birds, then I don’t see how putting up cemented construction can be in any way beneficial,” he added.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 27th, 2013.
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This project must be stopped otherwise the fragile climate of the region (Islamabad/Rawalpindi) will be disturbed, there might be no more regular monsoons, weather might turn drier and the beauty of Margalla Hills lost for ever. Beside that these mountains are natural source of water collection for the rivers specially Rawal and Simly Dams, Pakistan's rivers can start turning dry with less waters due to less water collection. Already Mining activities are being carried out in full speed on Margalla and Adjoining Khanpur Dams, instead of stopping that destruction the govt. came up with other speedy destruction plan. Great 100 days of new govt.
I dont find any reason for these tunnels other than these might shorten the path from Isb to Raiwand. LOL