Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The federal capital slowly but steadily is losing its greenery that can be gauged from the shrinking volume of trees and forestry despite the civic body’s mega annual tree plantation drives under which millions of saplings are planted.

The survival rate of the saplings is also a matter of great concern because the Capital Development Authority (CDA) directorate’s concern showed enthusiasm only during the campaign, but the passion subsided with the passage of time. There is no effective mechanism of monitoring the newly planted trees and not enough staff to look after the saplings.As a result, most of them die within days after their plantation. The federal capital had surroundings with a natural look, but it is fast losing the precious greenery, which is the product of ill-planned development and poor management of the CDA.

A resident of Sector F-8 Dr Irshad Khan said that the green belt located in F series had the largest number of dead trees. Greenery, once a hallmark of Islamabad, now only existed in the lawns of posh sectors of the capital; therefore, old trees needed to be protected before they vanish forever, he opined.

Preservation of old trees was a common practice in the developed countries, but the CDA had not made any efforts to tackle the challenge, another resident Shazia Khan said.

She observed that CDA had chopped thousands of trees in the last few years but nobody knew where these trees had gone.The CDA conducts a two-day-long tree plantation campaign every year in which

hundreds of thousands of saplings are planted, but surprisingly, the result is quite opposite, as the tree cover in Islamabad is decreasing at an alarming rate. However, a CDA official said that the authority had increased the number of new sapling from 400,000 to 500,000 during the last Spring Tree Plantation Campaign.