LAHORE, July 3: The Lahore Bachao Tehrik has prepared a draft seeking a ban on cutting of trees without following a specific procedure.

At a press conference here on Tuesday, convener Imrana Tiwana said the draft would be shortly handed over to legislators having a leaning towards environment for tabling in the parliament.

Representatives of other organisations which are party to the petition filed with the Lahore High Court challenging “incomplete” Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) procedure adopted by the Punjab authorities for the canal road widening project were also present on the occasion.

Advocate Mansoor Ali Shah, counsel for the tehrik, said as they could not get relief from the LHC on the issue, they were now considering to move the Supreme Court in this regard.

The LHC had been requested to grant a stay so that the development agencies could not start cutting of trees on the site but the pray was not accepted, he said.

The petitioners submitted that the EIA review process under the Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency (Review of IEE and EIA) Regulations, 2000 could not be approved by the Environment Protection Department without its revision by a Committee of Experts, Advisory Committee, Sectoral Advisory Committee and Environmental Assessment Advisory Committee which had not been constituted.

They also submitted that the public hearing conducted by the EPD was a sham exercise as the objections raised (in writing) in it by the petitioners and other stakeholders had till date not been responded to by the proponent (Tepa) or the EPD and the case was being processed further in blatant violation of the Act, Regulations and the Guidelines on the subject.

They pleaded that the preparation of EIA by Nespak was in violation of the Act, Regulations and the Guidelines on the subject and was liable to be set aside as being illegal.

The petitioners included the WWF-Pakistan, the Pakistan Environmental Law Association, Punjab (PELA), Shehri-CBE, Shajardost, Lahore Bachao Tehrik, Shirkat Gah, Pani Pakistan, Lahore Chitrkar, LACAS (Pvt) Ltd, Lahore Conservation Society, Institute of Architects of Pakistan (IAP), Simorgh Women’s Resource and Publication Centre, Mr Ardeshir Cowasjee, Mr Bilal Hassan Minto, and Mirza Mahmood Ahmad advocate. —Staff Reporter