KARACHI: A campaign to plant around 300,000 saplings across the city and a beach cleaning activity were part of the programmes organised on Tuesday to mark Earth Day that under this year’s theme of Green Cities focussed on renewable energy, green buildings and environment-friendly transportation.

Under the drive, Sarsabz-o-Pursakoon Karachi, about 300,000 indigenous saplings sourced from the provincial forest and agriculture departments would be planted across the city over the next three months.

The campaign was launched by Karachi Commissioner Shoaib Ahmed Siddiqui by planting saplings in Ramzan Goth near Hawkesbay. The drive has been initiated in collaboration with National Forum for Environment and Health (NFEH), a non-governmental organisation while the programme was organised with the help of an NGO, Indus Earth, which has been working in three union councils of that area. The latter pledged to plant 10,000 trees in the area over a period of one year with community assistance.

The species to be planted during the drive include fruit trees, vegetables and fodder crops.

“About 50,000 plants will be planted in the first phase. The entire campaign will be run with the collaboration of individuals, institutions and organisations that have shown interest and willingness to own plants,” Mohammad Naeem Qureshi representing the NFEH told Dawn.

The NFEH, he said, had held meetings and identified various stakeholders for partnership. They included provincial forest department, Environment Protection Agency, Karachi Metropolitan Corporation, Karachi Water and Sewerage Board, Sindh High Court Bar Association, Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Karachi Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Korangi Association for Trade and Industry, Pakistan Tanners Association, Burhani Foundation and International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Mr Qureshi said no sapling would be planted along the roads and greenbelts. Only the land where people, individuals or organisations, were ready to take care of the plantation would be chosen for the drive, he added.

The other major event of the Earth Day was organised in the Sandspit area where hundreds of government school students were engaged in an activity to clean the beach and plant 400 mangrove saplings.

The programme was organised by World Wide Fund for Nature-Pakistan (WWF-P).

“Contrary to this year’s theme of the Earth Day that encourages people make their cities green, what we are witnessing in our country is development at the cost of green cover coupled with fast depletion of forests. This should be a major cause of concern for all citizens as trees are a critical part of the ecosystem,” said WWF-P Director General Ali Hassan Habib at the programme.

“We must commit to sustainable development and make our government realize that turning cities into concrete jungles will ultimately reduce the quality of life and hence must be avoided. By depriving ourselves of ecological linkages, we will suffer in the long run in terms of health and economy as well,” he added.

Sindh WWF-P Conservation Manager Altaf Hussain Sheikh said that the world faced enormous environmental challenges, many of whom had developed because of flawed human approach looking at only short-term gains.

“Humans are now themselves a victim of their flawed planning and are experiences adverse changes in the ecosystem due to deforestation, over-hunting, discharge of untreated waste into water bodies, mismanagement

and over exploitation of natural resources,” he said.

According to Mr Sheikh, one can bring about a positive change in the fast degrading ecology only through increased plantation.

Other speakers highlighted the need for revisiting current development policies given the risks posed by climate change and urged the government to invest in renewable energy resources.