ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam said on Tuesday Urban forestry approaches were being assigned more importance and had been made an integral part of the 10 Billion Trees programme.

“Boosting tree cover in urban areas through sustainable and community-driven urban forestry initiatives has been made a central part of the country’s largest afforestation programme, launched last year as part of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s vision for the Clean and Green Pakistan programme,” he told the press.

“We have urged all provincial forest departments, municipalities, city development authorities and other relevant government organisations, which are partners in implementation of the [10 Billion Tree programme], to roll out plans under the country’s largest afforestation programme for setting up forests in urban centres. This will engage communities in the establishment of such green forest islands,” he added.

Mr Aslam said forest islands in urban areas can make cities and towns sustainable, resilient to heatwaves and urban flooding and healthy, equitable and liveable places.

“Without promoting urban forestry by involving communities, students, the corporate sector and other civil society organisations, the country’s various urban areas including Lahore, Karachi, Hyderabad, Multan, Faisalabad, Peshawar and Rawalpindi, will continue to remain increasingly vulnerable to various socioeconomic, environmental and climate change-related problems,” he said.

He also discussed a recent visit to the Miyawaki Urban Forest in Lahore, which has been established in the densely-populated Shadman locality by the Lahore Parks and Horticulture Authority to offset the growing negative impact of air pollution.

“It was exciting to see the first ever small city forest island established under the globally-recognised Miyawaki approach in Lahore now delivering positive impacts on the surrounding environment,” he said.

“Having observed the amazing positive impacts of the Miyawaki Urban Forest area, I feel convinced to call upon all federal and provincial forest departments and other relevant city and town management organisations to adopt the Miyawaki urban forest concept in cities to improve urban environments,” he said.

He said the Miyawaki urban forest concept was coined by Japanese botanist Akira Miyakawi. Under it, dense, native forests are built in urban areas to mitigate the deleterious fallout of environmental degradation due to air pollution, depleting groundwater resources, urban heatwaves, urban flooding, surging population growth and haphazard urban growth.

Planting dozens of native tree species at a site become maintenance-free after the first three years, and the Miyawaki concept’s key objective is to achieve 10 times faster plant growth, which results in urban forest zones 30 times denser than usual, he said.

Mr Aslam said that urban trees function as filters for urban pollutants and fine particulate matter, and urban forest models such as the Miyawaki model are more manageable, sustainable, fast to grow and yield a positive impact on the overall urban environment and public health in just a few years.

Quoting a study by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, he said that planting trees in urban areas could help cool the temperature by between 2°C and 8°C.

Published in Dawn, August 5th, 2020