ISLAMABAD, Jan 9: The Pakistan Environment Protection Agency (PEPA) has accused the Capital Development Authority (CDA) of cutting down Sumbul and Gulmohar trees in F-8 sector without any valid reasons.

According to sources, this was happening despite the hue and cry raised by the quarters concerned and the environmentalists’ objections that the CDA had failed to carry out replantation at the site.

They said the minister of state for environment, Maj Tahir Iqbal (retired), was furious over the felling of trees in F-8 sector, as the CDA took the action without involving the departments concerned.

The CDA should have consulted the departments concerned, such as PEPA and the federal forest department, before taking the step of cutting down trees. In this way a consensus could have been reached in this regard, the sources said.

A PEPA official, on condition of anonymity, said: “It was sheer mishandling on the part of the CDA and with little common sense the cutting down of trees could have been averted.”

If the Sumbul trees were posing health hazards to the people of the area, the National Institute of Health should have been involved to determine the fact as to whether these trees were causing problems or not. On the other hand, the CDA, responding to the complaints of a few residents, went ahead unilaterally and chopped down about 200 trees.

When contacted, Inspector-general Forests, Bashir Ahmed Wani confirmed that during the recently-held meeting in this regard, the minister disapproved the action taken by the CDA.

He said the authority’s contention that these species of trees were causing health problems to the residents was totally wrong, as there were no such complaints from the areas where Sumbul trees were in large numbers.

He also referred to the cutting down of paper-mulberry trees, another specie abundantly found in Islamabad that has been held responsible for causing allergy among the residents of the capital.

He said, however, research revealed that paper-mulberry tree had nothing to do with allergy. He added that the phenomenon was not Pakistan-specific and the problem (allergy) arose due to the excessive presence of pollens during spring season.

Answering a question, the director-general of the CDA’s environment directorate, Mazhar Hussain, said the authority had chopped down the trees on the orders of the federal ombudsman, as about 40 to 50 residents of the area had appealed for the removal of these trees.

People had been complaining about the problems caused by the flowers of Sumbul tree for the last one year, therefore the authority had to take the action, he said.

Defending the decision of cutting down the trees, Mr Hussain said the trees which had been chopped down by the CDA were very old and there was not nothing wrong in removing them.

To a question, he said the authority would plant new trees at the site within one month.

A women rights activist, Shehnaz Bokhari, who also resides in the area, was of the view that there must be some other solution to the problem.

Ms Bokhari said: “To me it was a great loss to both Islamabad and its citizens, as it will take more than 20 years for the trees to grow back to the same size if the CDA plants new ones.”