Ruination of natural habitat

Islambad : While the present government is making efforts to plant more trees to improve the environment, the Capital Development Authority (CDA) is busy chopping them down, right under the Prime Minister's nose, as they say! This is what is going on in what was a protected area just to make a ‘Forest Park’ whatever that means.

Situated along Murree Road, on a side road named Korang that leads to the Prime Ministers private house, this area known as Korang Park had been reserved for a Botanical Park so that students of wildlife preservation could study the flora and fauna, a project that did not take off for whatever reason. This green area has been the subject of encroachment and conflict in the past as influential persons wanted to grab the land and turn it into a commercial area. Now CDA is itself destroying it, or done so, as the clearing of the area has been going on for some time.

According to people living in the area, no experts appear to have been consulted and no environmental impact has been considered, as disturbing the natural habitat will finish the local wildlife and the forest of Sheesham trees and the many varieties of bushes that grow there. The birds will disappear as will the small wildlife that lived here.

Environmentalists need to step in and persuade the persons in charge that this area needs to be left alone. There is already a park a couple of kilometres away and another man-made one is not needed – a natural green area will be better all-round, for the environment as well as the population of fauna and those who live in the whole area that is fast becoming a concrete jungle as more and more buildings go up.