Andy Warhol’s ‘Do It Yourself’ (1962) paint-by-numbers emphasises the alienation of city dwellers from the direct experience of nature, as Warhol’s landscape was not misty hills in the countryside, but gleaming rows of supermarket shelves.

The designers of the 1950s were determined to invent newness to distance themselves from the ugliness of two World Wars. By the ’60s, the “false joy”, as it was called, became a very real celebration of the city, with its consumerism, plastic products and mass culture.

Nearly 50 years on, the world is aghast at the enormous plastic islands floating on the oceans, and the effects of climate change. More than half of the world’s population lives in cities connected by motorways that slice through forests, mountains and valleys, and what we consider nature has shrunk dramatically.

Progress is now a sober discussion on sustainability and eco-friendly, recyclable products. Cities are expected to house 75 percent of the world’s population by 2030. Planners continue to pile up citizens in higher and higher apartment blocks. And environmentalists grow hoarse pleading for more open spaces in green and “livable” cities.

For city developers, barren lands are seen as potential properties rather than a finely-balanced wildlife and plant habitat. While Mirza Nadeem Beg, a banker-turned-bird-photographer, posts pictures on his Facebook account of more than 30 species of birds spotted in Karachi (many in Defence Housing Authority’s Phase 8), we all know that new development and housing will push them further out. The University of Karachi is one of the few areas left in the city that are a haven for wildlife. We can still spot monitor lizards and the occasional sand boa snake. Scholars from the University of Karachi, S. Shahid Shaukat and Abid Raza, have conducted a fascinating study of the birds on campus and their nesting and feeding habitats, deploring the occasional clearing away of what is seen as untidy plants.

Urban dwellers have a conflicted relationship with nature of inclusion and exclusion. Warhol also said: “I think having land and not ruining it is the most beautiful art that anybody could ever want to own”. T.F. Powys’ short story Lie Thee Down Oddity explores the innate human urge to control and tame nature. Cinema keeps returning to themes of the unpreparedness and vulnerability of urban humans when faced with survival in nature.

For all our urban discomfort with nature, a romantic nostalgia makes us buy mogra attar (perfume), place rose petals on graves, design flower patterns on textiles, frame paintings or photographs of landscapes for our walls, and enjoy planting our gardens. We watch National Geographic or Animal Planet on TV, we keep birds, deer or goats as pets, we visit the city zoo or feel privileged to watch turtles lay eggs on the beach. The World Health Organisation recommends a minimum of nine square metres of green space per person. The global approach to green spaces has evolved to accommodate growing housing needs. Along with designated parks, other ways of adding green spaces are roadside planting,  roof gardens, gardens incorporated in elevated walkways, and  vertical planting on the sides of buildings,  as introduced by French botanist Patrick Blanc. Planting should encourage an ecosystem of birds and insects for which indigenous plants should be used.

Like the “Open Mumbai” proposal, Karachi has rivers and drains to restore, mangrove creeks and beaches, neglected parks to cultivate and surrounding lands to forest. Unfortunately, the removal of nurseries from greenbelts in the recent blitz on encroachments on pavements and roads makes any plans to bring nature back to Karachi near impossible, given that the city is a semi-desert, and that the only source for plants are commercial nurseries.

Durriya Kazi is a Karachi-based artist and heads the department of visual studies at the University of Karachi
Email: durriyakazi1918@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, December 16th, 2018