Lahore is one of the oldest cities in the world, and its origin dates back to between the 1st and 7th centuries A.D. Lahore is quite often referred to as the city of Gardens, and it has some of the most beautiful gardens in the sub-continent. However, as per Global Forest Watch, Lahore has lost 250 hectares of tree cover (i.e. equal to 16% of the tree cover area in 2000) between 2001 and 2024.
There is a dire need to halt deforestation, to afforest and reforest parts of Lahore city so that both urban development and environmental conservation goals can be achieved simultaneously. We must understand that urban development and environmental conservation are strongly coupled and cannot be decoupled, no matter how hard we try.
Thus, our pursuit to achieve the former without preserving the latter will only waste our time, energy and finances invested in this direction. We must ensure that our efforts to realise urban development walk hand in hand with environmental preservation, as only then can we achieve the sustainable urban development goal in Lahore city. Compromising on the environment to promote urban development has neither helped us in past, nor will it facilitate us in future.
We must focus on increasing the tree cover in Lahore city. There are many benefits of afforestation, reforestation and halting deforestation in the capital of Punjab Province. Tree-plantation can increase Lahore’s climate resilience and strengthen it further against climate-related disasters. We can also certainly increase birds’ diversity and population through the plantation of a diverse range of native trees in Lahore.
According to a research article published in the Journal of Urban Ecology (published by Oxford Academic), vegetation is an essential part of bird habitat. In cities, vegetation offers critical shelter, nesting and foraging habitat for bird species of interest. Similarly, another research paper published in ScienceDirect points out that birds offer crucial ecosystem services like pollination, pest control and the dropping and dispersal of seed, which then causes seedling recruitment and forest regeneration. Trees appeal to birds by offering food resources and a place for roosting and nesting. Just like trees appeal to birds, their absence might generate an exact opposite effect.
We must understand that urban development and environmental conservation are strongly coupled and cannot be decoupled, no matter how hard we try.
Another report published in Reuters in March 2019 highlights that roughly 300,000 acres (i.e. 121,000 hectares) of farmland were transformed into urban built-up land in the past 4 decades in Lahore city. It is understandable that Lahore is growing exponentially; however, we cannot compromise on our farmlands and tree cover, as by doing so, we would compromise on our food security, reduce our climate resilience and increase our climate vulnerability. To create a sustainable Lahore and a socially equitable Pakistan, we must follow a development model focusing equally on social and economic progress while preserving the environment at the same time.
Do you know that Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) hosts over 50 types of birds, including rufous-tailed lark, Lovebird, Bullbul, Jungle Myna, Crow and Baya Weaver. Similarly, Lahore Cantonment (LC) has 74 different species of birds, out of which 44 species are resident, 17 species are winter visitors, and 13 species are summer visitors. Despite such diversity of birds, unfortunately, whenever one looks up to the sky in Lahore city, the most common bird in sight turns out to be the crow, over-taking the sky and all other bird species. Crow is indeed a beautiful and wise bird, and we all can remember the story where the crow fills up the water jar with stones to satisfy its thirst.
Even though crows rely primarily on nuts, seeds and insects, however, they also scavenge on road kills in the form of dogs, cats, goats, chickens and cows, etc. Thus, crows play an extremely crucial role in keeping our environment clean. However, an exponential increase in the crow’s population might harm our ecosystem. From the environment’s point of view, an abundance of one species of bird is not good, and it will certainly produce a negative impact on the rest of the bird species sharing the same ecosystem. Do you know that crows would prey on eggs laid by other birds and would even eat their young ones?
Thus, an abundance of crows in the absence of their predators might mean a sharp decline in the population of other bird species. Do you know that owls are a natural predator of crows? Thus, to keep the crows’ population in control, we must ensure that owls occur in adequate numbers in Lahore’s ecosystem. Unfortunately, the population of owls in Pakistan is experiencing a sharp decline due to deforestation, pollution, unplanned urban expansion and illegal poaching. We must put an end to this unsustainable trend and ensure that Lahore’s ecosystem has enough owls to restore the ecological balance in the city.
To conclude, each bird species plays a crucial role in maintaining a delicate balance that exists in our ecosystem and helps it to function in a sustainable manner. Be it owl, falcon, crow, sparrow or any other bird, each has a particular role to play. Predator birds exist in nature to keep prey birds’ population in check. Thus, we must ensure that predators of each bird species would exist in Lahore’s ecosystem to keep the prey population in check, so that the ecosystem could function in an environmentally sound manner.
We cannot take this for granted, and thus we must ensure that we plant native trees in abundance across the length and breadth of Lahore city so that birds of all kinds would make Lahore their home again. We must adopt and implement an eco-centric approach when it comes to managing our ecosystems sustainably. We must understand that we need to take care of nature when commencing social and economic development. By doing so, we could truly achieve sustainable socio-economic progress that is inclusive for all and would leave no one behind. Choice is ours and will always be.
The writer is a Stockholm-based policy analyst and the Founder / Operations Manager of Project Green Earth (www.projectge.org). He can be reached at [email protected].