The hundred years old famed botanical garden of the Peshawar University campus is about to be destroyed. Will you help, asked helpless Adil Zareef from far off Peshawar. 'Will you', does not come into it. 'Can you?' is what counts.

Zareef is the secretary of the Sarhad Conservation Network (SCN), a small volunteer group made up of students, doctors, engineers, lawyers, NGOs, academics and others who think their efforts can make a change. Established two years ago, it aims at achieving their dream of a clean and saner environment. The empowerment of the people and to impart to them knowledge of various issues is our biggest weapon against ignorance, pollution and various mafias.

On the botanical garden issue, in the past two months SCN has sent several appeals to the vice-chancellor of Peshawar University and had two meetings with him - but to no avail. After several attempts to meet the chancellor, the governor of the province, SCN now has an appointment with him tomorrow, Monday, December 1. As says Zareef, "Peshawar University should have been the last place on earth to be exploited for commercial interests - but the fact is the rot has begun - it is time to put a stop to it'!"

A senior botanist and ecologist of Peshawar, a PhD from Montpellier (1964), overcome with 'shock,' has written to the vice-chancellor, the man who plans to demolish the garden and build highrises :

"I was shocked to read about the news of the plan for construction of a building at the site of the only internationally recognized botanical garden of Pakistan. I have been associated with the activities of plant biodiversity for more than 50 years. The great Professor Dr. N A Qazilbash established this garden. Despite limited available space, it is a very well planned institution. It comprises four sections - gymnosperms, xerophytes, Herbal Drug Conservatory and a field experimental section. The botanical garden to the budding botanists is like the hospital to a medical student. Not only has it been [a] source of supply of plant material for education and research for nearly fifty years; it must have also served to produce more than one thousand scientists with M.Sc., M.Phil, and Ph.D. degrees.

"The areas currently endangered receive full-day sunlight, a condition essential for proper growth, development and production of plants. It is possible to run research projects satisfactorily only if proper sunlight, and that too, close to the laboratories, is available for such studies. Depending on the type and number of research projects, which vary from year to year, a part or the whole of these plots is occupied by project-potted plants ..... The department has M. Sc. M. Phil. and Ph.D. projects, including some funded by foreign agencies, which do not approve a project for funding unless they are satisfied with the field and laboratory facilities."

Now let's read what was written in the 1920s by Henry Martin, scholar and principal of Islamia College (now the Peshawar University) who obviously hoped to 'tame the wild' :

"There is a certain romance about the Peshawar Islamia College due not to antiquity but to situation... it stands at the extreme western edge of the Peshawar plain, only six miles from the mouth of the Khyber Pass. It stands there alone and unafraid, right up against the wild hills of Afghanistan, a symbol and challenge. Its brown towers and graceful white domes and minaret... are the most notable sight that greets the eyes of the traveller from Afghanistan and Central Asia as he enters India. ....after leaving Jamrud he travels for six miles through a parched and arid land and then comes suddenly upon a veritable oasis in the desert, 250 acres of grassy fields and green lawns, avenues of trees and gardens of flowers.

"It is wonderful how great a transformation has been brought about by devoted workers in so short a time. Nine years ago this place was a desert: now is a garden. And the transformation is a parable, a prophesy of the change which the civilizing influence of this 'home of learning' should bring about in a wild people: 'The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them. And the desert shall rejoice and blossom as a rose'."

Peshawar University is famed for its gardens, which are now under threat of extinction owing to the on-going unsustainable so-called 'development'. Over the past century because of sheer hard work and dedication of its founding fathers, this institution evolved into one of the finest universities, set in one of the most beautiful campuses of the subcontinent.

The timber and building mafias that have denuded the Peshawar valley have now set their eyes on the gardens and the graceful old trees which line the boulevards and green lawns of the university. The administration is apparently not only ignoring the imminent environmental danger but actually patronizing the masterminds behind the ill-conceived projects of 'development'.

One fine morning in December 2000, the campus awoke to find 17 old trees missing from inside the old post office grounds - majestic trees that had given shade to the PO building. The then federal director-general of Post Offices, a retired military general, was said to be responsible for the disappearance of the 50-year old trees of the PU PO, as well as that of several tall palm and sheeshum trees from the Peshawar cantonment post office premises.

With the 2001 advent of Zulfiqar Gillani as vice-chancellor, said to be a liberal and enlightened man, it was expected by those concerned and worried that the environment of the campus would figure high on his list of priorities. Sadly, not. An afficionado of modern architecture and exotic plants, Gillani lacks respect and feeling for old historic buildings and foliage. As one of his admirers puts it : 'He is a man on the move.' So, history and modernity are now involved in an ugly clash at the crossroads of the PU campus.

Early in April this year, another 18 half-a-century-old trees, standing in a row, were felled in one single swoop. SCN protested and the VC explained : "The Wapda people arrived early in the morning, without a warning. The trees were cut without our knowledge.' Who controls the campus? Wapda or the vice-chancellor? SCN was assured that a 'tree assessment committee' had been set up and all activities regarding pruning and felling would be notified and sanctioned by the members and that no further environmental disasters would occur.

But they have, the latest being the new plan to build a biotechnology block in the midst of the botany department's botanical garden. The university faculty, the students, and many caring people of Peshawar have largely condemned this desecration. This garden boasts 80 rare species of plants and trees, some extremely rare, planted and nurtured by the founding fathers of the botany department.

One plant, 'Petraraea volubilis', is said to be the only one of its kind in Pakistan. Adding to this bit of atrocious 'modernization', is the administration's plan to convert the outer green belt into a concrete car park - and to blazes with the many rare tall trees which now stand there

Peshawar as a whole, as with all other cities in this country, has suffered immensely over the past few decades, the Afghan situation exacerbating the rot and decline. The 2000-year-old city of Peshawar has been carelessly converted into a faceless urban wasteland inhabited by monstrous, hideous buildings. Its roads are choked with thousands of vehicles spitting venomous smoke, and it is estimated that some 90 per cent of its populace suffer from respiratory ailments. The university campus is an oasis, an island of green and calm amidst the wreckage of a historic city. This now is threatened, and if those who have a say in matters are allowed to have their way, the old green and lovely PU campus will be history.

Advice to Zareef: Awaken the people, appeal to those who now count - the chief justice perhaps? We in Sindh once had a chief justice who remained a fearless judge (until much later when he allowed himself to be politicized). He telephoned tree-choppers, told them to immediately stop their chopping, which they did, not having the guts to ask him where he came into it all. Or, how about an appeal to the chief minister (who assumed unto himself the 'mandatory' beard as soon as he took office)? The army, however, still calls the shots. If Corps Commander Lt General Orakzai has followed in his father's footsteps, the botanical garden will live.

And, when you meet the governor tomorrow (who it is said does not speak Pashto as did Roos Keppel) remind him of what Robert Walpole, prime minister of England, told Queen Anne when, three centuries ago, she asked him what would be the cost were she to enclose Green Park within the grounds of Buckingham Palace. 'A monarchy, Madam, a monarchy.'