ISLAMABAD: The Capital Development Authority (CDA) on Thursday defended its decision to cut trees for the construction of Ataturk Avenue.

The Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) in a press statement said the project director of the CDA in a briefing to the ministry said 2,500 new trees would be planted in place of the 245 which were being chopped for the expansion of the road.

Instead of small saplings, the environment wing would plant eight to 10 feet tall plants for which a budgetary provision has already been made in the PC-1, it said.

The CDA official said 500 trees each of alestonia, pilkhan, chir pine, ficus, 400 of sukh chain and 100 sapium would be planted. Sources in the CDA said the civic agency had never conducted an audit of the plantation campaigns and trees in the city did not have official numbering. The sources said instead of cutting trees for the expansion of roads the civic agency should uproot at least small trees to transplant them somewhere else.

He said a special audit of all the plantation campaigns carried out during the last 10 years should be conducted. “Every year, the environment wing claims to have planted thousands of saplings but Islamabad is fast losing its green cover,” the official said.

According to the press release, CADD minister Dr Tariq Fazal Chaudhry had sought a report from the CDA on the cutting of trees at the Ataturk Avenue and Embassy Road.

The CDA submitted a report and briefed the minister about the urgent need to expand Embassy Road.

The project director said the increasing volume of traffic had been creating problems for commuters on Embassy Road. In order to ease the traffic pressure, the expansion of the road was inevitable. He said the master plan of Islamabad contained provisions for the expansion of Embassy Road and a reasonable space had been left vacant along the road for this purpose. The trees were planted on the vacant place left for the expansion of the road.

The project director also refuted claims made by some activists that the expansion of the road was being made on land designated as a green area. He said the plan to expand the Embassy Road had been approved by the Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency (Pak-EPA) as it contained measures to mitigate the effects on the environment.

For every tree cut for the expansion of the road 10 new plants will be planted. The project director said 25pc of the trees cut were paper mulberry and eucalyptus which were now prohibited species, the former being the source of respiratory allergies among the citizens.

Published in Dawn, October 20th, 2017