By Shrouq Tariq
Islamabad, Pakistan (AFP) Feb 8, 2026
Pakistan’s capital Islamabad was as soon as recognized for its lush greenery, however the felling of bushes throughout the town for infrastructure and navy monuments has prompted native anger and even lawsuits.
Constructed within the Nineteen Sixties, Islamabad was deliberate as a inexperienced metropolis, with huge avenues, parks and tree-lined sectors.
Many residents worry that imaginative and prescient is steadily being eroded, with concrete changing inexperienced areas.
Muhammad Naveed took the authorities to court docket this 12 months over “large-scale tree reducing” for infrastructure initiatives, accusing them of felling “many mature bushes” and leaving land “barren”.
The World Large Fund for Nature (WWF) blamed main infrastructure improvement, together with highway building and monuments, for the mass razing of bushes and pure vegetation in Islamabad.
Between 2001 and 2024, the capital misplaced 14 hectares of tree cowl, equal to twenty soccer pitches, in line with World Forest Watch, although the determine doesn’t account for tree cowl good points throughout the identical interval.
For Kamran Abbasi, an area dealer and resident because the Nineteen Eighties, it looks like “they’re reducing bushes all over the place”.
“It isn’t the identical anymore,” he instructed AFP.
“Timber are life. Hundreds are reduce to construct one bridge.”
– Smog and pollen –
In the meantime, air high quality in Islamabad continues to deteriorate.
Air pollution is a longstanding downside, however crops can assist by filtering soiled air, absorbing dangerous gases and cooling cities.
“Forests act as highly effective pure filters… cleansing the air and water, and decreasing the general impression of air pollution,” Muhammad Ibrahim, director of WWF-Pakistan’s forest programme instructed AFP.
There have been no good air high quality days in Islamabad final month, with all however two classed as “unhealthy” or “very unhealthy” by monitoring organisation IQAir.
Whereas some bushes are felled for infrastructure, officers justify eradicating others to sort out seasonal pollen allergic reactions which are particularly acute in spring.
That downside is essentially attributed to paper mulberry bushes, which had been planted extensively in the course of the metropolis’s early improvement.
“The principle motive is pollen allergy,” mentioned Abdul Razzaq, an official from the Capital Growth Authority (CDA) in Islamabad.
“Individuals undergo from chest infections, bronchial asthma and extreme allergic reactions. I do too,” he instructed AFP.
The federal government plans to take away 29,000 pollen-producing bushes and crops, in line with a latest WWF report.
Nevertheless, critics argue that pollen allergic reactions are an excuse to justify broader tree-cutting, notably linked to navy and infrastructure initiatives.
The answer lies not in indiscriminate tree elimination, however cautious city planning, specialists say, replanting with non-allergenic species — and higher transparency round improvement initiatives within the capital.
– Capital beneath axe –
In latest months, giant bulldozers have been noticed levelling former inexperienced belts and wooded areas, together with close to main highways.
Based on WWF and unnamed authorities officers, among the cleared land is tapped for monuments commemorating the temporary however intense armed battle between Pakistan and neighbouring India final Might.
Different plots had been razed to make means for military-linked infrastructure.
“We all know that bushes are being reduce for military-related initiatives, however there’s not a lot we will do,” a authorities supply instructed AFP, requesting anonymity for safety causes.
“The individuals in energy, the navy, can do no matter they need.”
Pakistan’s highly effective navy has dominated the nation for many years by coups and is deeply concerned within the nation’s politics and economic system, analysts say.
At a proposed navy monument website alongside the town’s categorical freeway, WWF recorded greater than six hectares of land clearing final 12 months, with work persevering with in 2026.
It noticed “no lively plantation… indicating that the clearing is infrastructure pushed”.
The navy didn’t reply to AFP’s request for remark.
Naveed’s court docket case searching for to halt the widespread felling, which continues to be being heard, argues there’s “no excuse” for the tree loss.
If a monument is “deemed important, why was it not positioned in any current park or public place?”, he argues.
In reply to Naveed’s petition, authorities mentioned roads and infrastructure initiatives had been accepted beneath laws courting again to 1992.
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