Plan to plant 50,000 trees along Bhara Kahu underpass

Islamabad:The civic agency has made another plan to plant 50,000 trees along the Bhara Kahu underpass that will be completed in the coming days.

According to the details, the environment wing of the civic agency is currently working on the selection of plant species that will be planted at this spot.

This correspondent used artificial intelligence ChatGPT that stated "These are some tree species that are suitable for planting in Islamabad including ‘chir’, pine, silver oak, jacaranda, mulberry, ‘neem’, bottlebrush, pomeg­ranate, amaltas, olive, paperbark and maple."

But an owner of plant nursery who has been doing business in Islamabad for last twenty years provided more information. He said pine tree takes at least 20 years to grow. The indigenous plants like ‘kikar’, ‘talli’, and ‘darek’ grow within short span of time and survive in this atmosphere.

He said "Hibiscus tiliaceus, commonly known as the sea hibiscus or coast cottonwood, is a species of flowering tree in the mallow family, and it also grows faster and its survival rate is also quite good in Islamabad."

The environmental impact assessment report of the project site said, "The proposed project area is plain and enrich with natural vegetation. The dominant natural floral species found in form clumps are mostly Jungli toot (falling in loop), Sheesham, Cheer, Shafeda and several different local species were also observed. In the study area two herb species are found. The area is covered with different types of grasses and are unevenly distributed along the study area."

It also said, "Birds sighting and habitat used by them along the proposed alignment was identified. Sighting of common birds such as crow, sparrow and bulbul was recorded. No endangered species were found."

It is also important that local birds should be able to build nests in the trees otherwise this practice will not provide any help to improve natural environment.