Few people — especially those in positions of ‘authority’ — appear to realise the extreme importance of increasing trees in urban environments. Even many active environmentalists themselves ignore the urban in favour of promoting rural and forest tree planting campaigns, while ‘going green’ is usually nothing more than a photo op for most politicians. Yet, the fact is that saving and planting trees in urban centres is essential if Pakistan, currently ranked among the top five countries to suffer the most from climate change, is to survive in any reasonably habitable form.

“Trees are the lungs of the earth,” stresses Dr Jawad Chishtie of Subh-i-Nau, an environmental and public health NGO based in Islamabad. “But, wherever trees are planted, it is important that we plant the right ones,” he said, adding that “In Islamabad, the most appalling aspect is the plantation of exotic species in both the public and private sectors that has gone on, unchecked, for years. The Capital Development Authority (CDA) finally appears to have learnt and is now promoting the planting of indigenous species such as ‘sukh chain’, ‘kuchnar’ and fruit trees but a lot of work remains to be done in the area of replacing exotics like the infamous paper mulberry and lantana in the Margalla Hills Nation Park.”

Still known as ‘Islamabad, The Green’, the city is quickly disappearing beneath widened and new roads and underneath monstrous new developments. “What the CDA has allowed in green belts in the form of parking and other amenities is downright criminal,” says Dr Chishtie. “This also connects to the other issue of having a mass transit system to lesson traffic on the roads and resultant parking problems. As per the city master plan, the third lane on existing double roads was actually meant for tram lines.”

As climate change and associated extreme weather events increasingly impact lives all over Pakistan, it is important to pay attention to greening up urban environments for a number of reasons: trees, preferably indigenous species, need to be planted in parks, green belts, along streets, in meridians, around and in car parks, in gardens and on ‘waste’ land of any kind. Doing so immediately reduces the ‘heat island effect’ and has the potential to considerably reduce the ambient temperature, both day and night by mitigating the amount of direct heat from sunlight, which is increased by the concrete, cement and glass of buildings, car parks, etc. from which it bounces straight back, magnified, into the air both day and night. An acre of trees, even of scattered trees, absorbs approximately six tonnes of carbon dioxide (Co2) and radiates, in return, four tonnes of oxygen annually; which is enough supply for just 18 people for a year. Multiply this by the millions residing in urban centres such as Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Peshawar and Quetta, without even considering people residing in rural areas, and the need for massive urban tree planting becomes obvious.

Speaking of the situation in Lahore, Samiya Mumtaz, Organic Producer for DAALI Earth Foods and active environmentalist, says “I think the most important thing is to propagate, plant and nurture as wide a variety of native trees as possible. We really have to stop imported exotics from being planted — especially in public places.

Talking about the indigenous species of trees in Lahore, she said, peepal, neem, tahli, keekar, bakain have survived the onslaught of the more ‘fashionable’ imported varieties and others that have almost completely disappeared. It might be helpful to remind ourselves of some of these forgotten varieties of trees, like dhaak, barna, bistendu/kendu, frassh/pharwaan, jhand, kareer, vann/pilu and phulai all of which should be planted instead of imported species with their ‘imported’ problems.”

Explaining further, she says, “This is true for places wherever there are trees, but in an urban environment they become all the more important because the built environment, especially due to the material it is built with, like cement, emits heat. Then, there is carbon emitting vehicular traffic. Trees perform a balancing act for nature by offsetting, and even combating, the negative effects of the man-made environment. They are the lungs into which the carbon sinks, and from which oxygen levels are replenished.”

“However,” Salam stressed. “We must exercise caution when considering planting trees in an urban environment. Only indigenous species should be planted and promoted. We have already done enough harm to the urban environment: Not only by stripping off the tree cover, but through the ill planned plantation of trees like eucalyptus all over the place, by planting paper mulberry in Islamabad and conocarpus across Karachi while other parts of Sindh have been harmed by the rampant invasion of the harmful ‘devi’ plant.” (See: A tale of two trees )

It is abundantly clear that urban tree planting campaigns must be initiated on an emergency basis and that only indigenous species should be nurtured and planted. These should be fruit bearing whenever possible, and the government ‘Plant protection’ department whose duty is to prevent the importation of possibly invasive species, needs to get its act together and stop private parties from doing just this.