ISLAMABAD, Aug 1 The Supreme Court has been told that the Punjab environment protection department was opposed to the now scrapped New Murree project initiated by the previous government which if completed could have threatened 17 commonly used medicinal plants and adversely affected local flora and fauna.

Advocate Mansoor Ali Shah while submitting an assessment report on eco significance of the project to 14-member Supreme Court bench on behalf of the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) stated before the court that the project was in direct contravention with the National Environment Policy 2005 and the Pakistan Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP-2003) under which the government had pledged to preserve and rehabilitate country's remaining natural forest and increase its area to six per cent by 2015.

Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry had taken a suo motu action on the project after reading an article in this paper on September 8, 2005.

According to the plans, the New Murree tourist resort was to be built at Patriata Hills over 4,111 acres that involved forest cutting or uprooting hundred of thousands of coniferous trees.

At the last hearing, the Supreme Court was informed that the Punjab government had abandoned the project that had the potential of polluting Simly and Rawal dams on which the residents of Rawalpindi and Islamabad depend for their water supply.

Since the project area is an integral watershed of Simly and Mangla dams, the WWF report said, the proposed developments could have entailed large scale decimation of surviving tract of forests imperative to guarantee groundwater replenishment along with regulation of water table and to prevent rapid soil erosion with consequential silting of water channels and dams downstream flash floods and landslides.

The natural forests from a vital part of catchments and guarantee better quality water with lower levels of sediments and pollutants, it said.

The rapid loss of forest cover and subsequent conversion to other land usage is being identified as the major reason for depletion and contamination of freshwater supplies, aggravating the looming water crisis that was threatening the entire country.

The project area is located at the highest point in the Punjab (about 2,223 meters) and part of the best remaining Himalayan (temperate) forest areas in the province.