ISLAMABAD, Feb 11: In this season of protests, the capital city witnessed the strangest one on Saturday when children gathered round an old banyan tree with the mission to save it from the hatchet.

“This tree should be saved from vandals who are scouting old trees in the city and cutting them down,” shouted painter Ghulam Rasul to encourage the child members of the recently formed Tree Lovers Club.

Club official Celocia Zaidi told Dawn that the club has been formed to resist “the mass murder” of trees in the federal capital. The benign banyan tree standing near the under-construction National Art Gallery on the Constitution Avenue was chosen to be the first in the club’s “Adopt a Tree” campaign.

Ghulam Rasul said the tree was more than 100 years old. As he spoke the children climbed up the tree to claim it with placards reading “Protect and preserve this old banyan tree”.

“This tree is poorman’s companion. Hundreds of them have sat under its shade to chat or for leisure. This tree must be saved,” said the artist famous for painting nature and beauty of Northern Areas.

Pakistan National Council of the Arts director-general Naeem Tahir, whose attention was drawn to this ancient tree, and the spread of its long branches, promised to preserve the tree.

Painter Fauzia Minallah closed the demonstration with the declaration: “We are tree lovers and wish our Islamabad to remain green for our children. Trees of Islamabad are not only a symbol of its natural beauty but also its soul”.

If the CDA was felling trees for building roads and other development projects, it must also plant trees such as banyan, pipal, pine and sheesham, Fauzia demanded.

She suggested CDA to plant indigenous trees of Potohar such as Amaltas, Chinar, Dreg, and Kachnar.

A TLC statement appealed to the citizens of the city not to watch “the tyranny against nature” silently but cry out loud against it.