Language shapes our perception and, in a way, influences our actions. Pakistan is blessed with extraordinary linguistic and cultural diversity, yet we have to fully harness this “linguistic capital” to cultivate ecological awareness.
Under the leadership of Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has made notable progress. However, progress on the ground may not substitute the “language” through which ecological actions are shared.
A close analysis of EPA advertisements reveals a linguistic pattern that is both familiar and limiting. Many of the visual materials rely on militarised metaphors that depict the environment as something to be policed or subdued. The image of uniformed officers standing in formation under the slogan “Enforcing Clean, Ensuring Green” is not only a promotional photograph; it is an ideology. It frames environmental protection as a command-and-control operation, a task that depends on surveillance, enforcement, and punitive authority. Such imagery may inspire discipline, but it also risks alienating the very public whose cooperation is essential for sustainable change. When ecological care is presented as obedience rather than participation, we create distance instead of solidarity.
Other advertisements promote what may be called “technological salvation.” Fog cannons are presented as frontline soldiers “fighting smog,” as if pollution were an invading force rather than a predictable consequence of human industrial emissions, crop-burning, unregulated traffic, and weak urban planning. The metaphor of “fighting” pollution with machines distracts from the reality that smog cannot be sprayed away; it must be prevented. It risks turning environmental action into spectacle.
Equally pervasive is the metaphor of environment-as-economy. Posters depicting trees growing coins, or the promise of “real savings” through green actions, reduce ecological wellbeing to financial benefit. While behavioural economists may argue that incentives motivate action, such framing reinforces the destructive ideology that nature’s value lies solely in its economic utility. This is precisely the worldview that has driven ecological degradation in the first place.
When we perceive the Ravi as a relative instead of a drainage system or treat the mangroves of Karachi as living protectors rather than an unused wetland, our relationship to ecological care shifts from duty to affection and obligation.
What is missing in these discourses is an understanding of ecosolidarity, the recognition that humans are part of the ecological systems that sustain life. Current advertisements speak about the environment but seldom speak from within it. They promote compliance but not connection and motivation.
If we wish to build a sustainable future, we must begin with sustainable metaphors.
Arran Stibbe, a leading scholar in ecolinguistics, argues that cultures are shaped by the “stories we live by.” Some stories are destructive. They promote domination, consumption, and indifference. Others are ambivalent. They appear positive but mask deeper ecological erasures. And some, though rare, are beneficial. They promote humility, reciprocity, care, and a sense of belonging within the living world.
Pakistan urgently needs more beneficial ecological stories.
One such metaphor is the idea of nature as kin. Many indigenous cultures speak of rivers as ancestors, trees as elders, and mountains as guardians. These metaphors do not romanticise nature; instead, they humanise responsibility. When we perceive the Ravi as a relative instead of a drainage system or treat the mangroves of Karachi as living protectors rather than an unused wetland, our relationship to ecological care shifts from duty to affection and obligation. Language alone will not clean our rivers, but it can evoke the imagination that motivates action.
Another beneficial metaphor is ecosystems as homes. We often describe cities as “our home,” yet the forests, wetlands, and soil that make our existence possible are never included in this definition. If Pakistan’s communication strategy began framing the environment not as a resource but as a shared home, one that shelters humans, animals, and future generations alike, it would encourage a more inclusive ecological consciousness.
Similarly, visual metaphors must evolve. Instead of militarised images or machines spraying mist into polluted air, we need imagery that foregrounds interconnectedness. A child planting a tree with an elderly relative; women harvesting rainwater; farmers observing traditional ecological practices; communities restoring wetlands. These visuals foster a narrative of ecological belonging rather than ecological crisis management.
Our multilingual reality is another untapped asset. Ecological communication that appears copy-pasted from Western internet templates cannot resonate with Pakistani audiences. Imagine smog awareness campaigns in Punjabi poetry, Sindhi folktales infused with climate lessons, Pashto proverbs reinterpreted for environmental stewardship, or Balochi narratives connecting coastal life with marine conservation. Linguistic diversity is not a barrier; rather, it is an ecological resource.
The EPA has the institutional capacity to lead this shift, but it must also cultivate a linguistic consciousness. Every slogan, every poster, every visual choice carries ideological weight. Is the advertisement promoting fear or ecosolidarity? Obedience or agency? Isolation or interdependence? These questions determine not only how policies are received but also how environmental identities are shaped.
To move forward, Punjab should consider three directions. First, redesign ecological campaigns to foreground relational metaphors such as nature as kin, ecosystems as homes, and environmental action as communal care. Second, collaborate with local artists, linguists, poets, teachers, and universities to create contextually grounded communication materials. And third, train EPA in ecolinguistics principles so that environmental narratives align with ecological ethics.
We cannot solve ecological crises with destructive or shallow metaphors. We cannot cultivate ecosolidarity through militarised or market-driven imagery. And we cannot build a sustainable Pakistan unless our language itself becomes sustainable, that is, rooted in care, humility, and connection. It is hard to expect people to care about things that are systematically erased from the texts they deal with every day.
What we do not name, we do not notice. What we do not notice, we do not protect. If Pakistan is serious about safeguarding its ecological future, this transformation must begin at the level of policy language. Environmental laws, public campaigns, school curricula, and media discourse must move beyond the Western jargon and adopt a language that makes nature relatable and morally essential. Only by reforming the words through which the state and society speak about the environment can we cultivate public responsibility and ensure long-term ecological protection.
The first author is a Professor of English at Riphah International University, Lahore. He is a lead guest editor at Emerald and Springer publishing.
The second author is an Assistant Professor of English at Govt. Graduate College for Women, Samanabad, Lahore