KARACHI: A Sindh High Court division bench, comprising Justice Sajjad Ali Shah and Justice Shaukat Ali Memon, has granted a stay on a petition against the cutting down of 1400-plus conocorpus broadleaf trees in a three-acre park opposite Dolmen Mall on Seaview Road in Clifton.

This was confirmed by Salahuddin Ahmed, advocate for the petitioners Noman Quadri and Abid Ali Syed, both of whom are area residents.

This is a small victory in the uphill battle to save the city’s fast-diminishing green cover from avaricious land developers and outdoor advertising agencies in collusion with officials in landowning agencies, local and provincial government, whose commercial interests have already led to tens of thousands of trees being chopped down across the city over the past year to make way for construction projects and advertising billboards.

Mr Quadri, one of the petitioners, expressed his relief at the outcome. “This has restored my faith in civil society, for it shows that the common man can make a difference if he takes a stand.”

The petition, which named the Sindh government, Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) and Sindh Environment Protection Agency as respondents, said: “Recently, it has come to the knowledge of the Petitioners that the Respondents have now turned their attention towards the said park and intend to cut down the trees on the periphery of the park and install

advertising billboards and hoardings in their place and provide commercial parking spaces.”

Elsewhere it stated, “… the Respondents are more interested in earning revenue from commercial advertisers and by selling commercial parking spaces rather than protecting the environment. Their acts of commission and omission in this regard are in violation of their statutory obligations, unreasonable and blatantly malafide and without jurisdiction.”

The basic flaw, aside from the runaway greed of some of those responsible for the province’s welfare of course, lies in weak legal protections for the environment. Cutting trees is listed among the offences included in the Fourth Schedule, Part II of the Sindh Local Government Ordinance, 2001: “Cutting down of any tree, or cutting of a branch of any tree, or erection or demolition of any building or part of a building where such action is declared under this Ordinance to be a cause of danger or annoyance to the public.” Section 145 of the Ordinance reads: “Whoever commits any of the offence specified in Part II of the Fourth Schedule shall be punishable with imprisonment which may extend to six months and with fine which may extend to five thousand rupees… .”

Cutting down the 1,400 fully grown, lush green trees in the three-acre park in question would have thus hypothetically worked out to Rs7 million – if the maximum fine was imposed in the highly unlikely event of prosecution – an amount that would make barely a dent in the rich pickings from a prime location where each billboard fetches at least Rs10 million for the individuals concerned.

KMC Administrator Rauf Farooqui, soon after the news of the impending decimation of this green belt emerged in the press, stated on record that he has no intention of cutting down the trees. However, sources in the KMC advertising department said that permission for erecting billboards after clearing the park had already been given to three outdoor advertising agencies with links to the provincial government ministry. Sources also maintain that KMC advertising director Akhtar Shaikh has been barred from issuing permission for hoardings in the Clifton area, a right arrogated by higher officials in the Sindh local government. Mr Shaikh, however, denied this.

“The ministry is not involved in this. Anyway I’ve only been at this post since 20 days; to my knowledge, no permission has been given to anyone to put up hoardings in the location of the park.”

Published in Dawn, September 6th, 2014