Urban forestry for environmental protection stressed

ISLAMABAD: While emphasising urban forestry for environmental protection, climate change minister Mushahidullah Khan said that trees around buildings helped cut air conditioning requirements and conserve energy.

"Trees properly planted around buildings play a vital role in reducing air conditioning needs by 30 per cent and save energy used for heating up to 50 per cent," he told reporters here. The minister said that planting trees in urban centres prevented the recurrence of heat waves in cities.

He said trees were chopped down by hundreds in Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi to make way for metro bus and similar projects and that the federal and provincial forest officials boosted urban forestry at national scale to protect urban areas from heat waves.

The minister said planting trees in urban centres should be integral part of the spring and monsoon plantation campaigns to boost the Green Pakistan Programme. He said urban forestry was the most viable and cheapest way to protect cities from becoming urban ‘heat islands’, which was significantly warmer than its surrounding rural areas due to human activities.

“Our cities and towns have now become hotter than their nearby rural areas," he said. The minister said the natural waterways that snaked through those urban centres provided natural cooling effect when wind passed across them during sweltering summer months.

He however said it was a matter of concern that most urban waterways had been encroached upon by land grabbers in connivance with civil and municipal authorities. Talking about numerous benefits of urban forestry, the minister said large urban trees were wonderful filters for urban pollutants and fine particulates.

“Large trees with widely spread thick canopy, when placed strategically, can help improve urban air quality by filtering it, remove heat-trapping carbon dioxide from urban atmosphere and increase the amount of oxygen in it for improved public health,” he said.