Daily Times

Karachi: Some 12,000 trees planted alongside the main University Road in the city are feared to be uprooted or completely chopped down in the coming few days as the long-awaited project of reconstruction of main thoroughfare of the city has been started.

Such uprooting and cutting of trees would be in severe violation of the governmental rules for promotion of the cause of environment, forestry, greenery, and horticulture; said President of National Forum for Environment and Health (NFEH) Naeem Qureshi in a statement issued Monday.

The NFEH president said in the statement that the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC), which was responsible for doing the reconstruction work of the main roads in the city had not been taking required steps in an effective manner for saving these trees from getting ruined and wasted altogether.

He said that if uprooting of the trees had become inevitable for the cause of doing reconstruction of University Road then these trees should be re-planted at some suitable place elsewhere in the city in order to save them from completely decimated.

He said it was feared that some 2,000 trees could be chopped down and wasted as reconstruction work of University Road would be carried out from Hassan Square till NIPA intersection in the first stage while the another 10,000 trees could be uprooted when this reconstruction work would be further expanded from NIPA to Safoora Chowrangi in the next stage till last intersection of the University Road.

Apparently, the officials related to department of parks and horticulture of KMC had not been taken into confidence regarding the feared situation of chopping down of such large number of trees in the city due to renovation of University Road.

The NFEH chief said in the statement that already tree cover in the city had reduced to mere two per cent of the previous number of trees present in Karachi, as the sorry state of affairs had led to deterioration of environmental situation and further severing of climatic conditions.

He said that Sindh chief minister should immediately take stock of the situation so to order due corrective measures to save and conserve leftover tree cover of the city from getting wasted altogether as major infrastructure development projects like Rapid Bus Transit Service and building of new roads were being carried out at a rapid pace in total disregard of environment.

He said the provincial government and KMC should wake up to save the situation on emergency basis from getting crashed altogether as on a number of occasions in the past the commissioner of Karachi and other concerned provincial authorities had declared unlawful the activity related to cutting down of trees while declaring such an anti-social practice a criminal act.

He warned that concerned civil society organizations would resort to protest in case the concerned provincial and municipal authorities didn’t take due corrective measures to save whatever greenery and tree cover was left in the city.