Garden Avenue, known locally as the Thandi Sarak or ‘cool street’, has a special place in the hearts and memories of nearly anyone who has ever lived in Islamabad.

Much like hiking on the Margalla trails or a trip to Rawal Lake, it is a quintessential way of experiencing the city.

One can also think of this area as the capital’s ‘tourist district’, as it is where the Pakistan Monument and its attached museum, the Lok Virsa cultural hub, the Natural History Museum (with its famous outdoor-mounted whale skeleton), and a couple of swanky eateries are all located.

But of late, a drive down this shaded boulevard prompts a sense of agitation rather than tranquillity, thanks to the efforts of the capital’s civic managers.

Over the past few weeks, a Capital Development Authority-sanctioned tree-felling drive has seen vast tracts of forest land being ‘cleared’ of their green cover.

These patches, located on the eastern side of Garden Avenue – running almost parallel to the Islamabad Expressway near Zero Point – are clearly visible on satellite maps of the area.

The tree-felling has been so severe that now, not only can one spot the white dome of the Met Office weather radar – located in H-8 – from here, even the Islamabad Expressway is clearly visible from Lok Virsa.

Although the CDA has maintained that it is merely complying with orders to eradicate paper mulberry trees – thought to be one of the vectors behind pollen-linked respiratory problems that some residents of the capital regularly experience – citizens, members of civil society, and organisations such as WWF-Pakistan have all rightly called this explanation into question.

But rather than coming clean about its plans, the CDA’s knee-jerk response and the ill-advised plantation campaign it has embarked upon since the issue has garnered the media spotlight have only deepened the quagmire.

This is because January is perhaps the least favourable time of year for any plantation drive in the capital, since the fledgling saplings will definitely struggle to weather the severe cold and frost that is characteristic of Islamabad winters.

Capital’s changing character

One of the pleasures of living in the federal capital has always been the greenery.

Amidst all the derisive inter-city banter, one thing even the most fervent Lahore- or Karachi-philes would concede is that Islamabad was an oasis of green-lined grid patterns amidst a country full of ungainly urban sprawl.

A case in point is Garden Avenue. Taking a meandering path through the dense foliage, it serves as a proverbial portal, whisking commuters from the hustle-bustle of Aabpara, through the soothing calm of the Shakarparian forest, and depositing them onto the Islamabad Expressway in virtually no time at all.

This was perhaps because the capital was built to plan; the brainchild of Greek architect and urban planner C. A. Doxiadis. His project brief on the design of our nation’s capital categorised the metropolitan area into three distinct parts: the new city of Islamabad, the existing settlement of Rawalpindi, and the national park area adjoining both.

Despite the many changes to the original masterplan over the years, one thing that has remained constant is the character of the land designated as national park land has remained constant. In his project brief, Doxiadis noted that this part of the capital “will retain certain agricultural functions for several years and where sites must be provided for a national sports centre, the national university, national research institute”.

Granted, a civic authority’s job is not easy, and they certainly cannot please everyone, especially amid the clamour of conflicting interests (of which there are plenty), but the CDA’s opacity on the matter is hard to reconcile.

Nowhere is this more apparent than on Garden Avenue. The three plots of land that have been cleared around the Lok Virsa complex have been completely stripped of all vegetative cover, much like before undertaking a major construction project.

A recent WWF-Pakistan report has lent credence to such apprehensions, with its “field assessments indicat[ing] that vegetation loss in the capital is not limited to Paper Mulberry management alone, but is also linked to infrastructure development in multiple locations”.

While the report focuses on construction work underway in H-8, on the other side of the Islamabad Expressway, its observations of the tree-felling in the Shakarparian area indicate that ‘understory vegetation’ – shrubs and smaller plants considered crucial for forest health – has been cleared and the soil has been heavily compacted, and needs immediate restoration.

While officialdom has now swung into action, with everyone from the prime minister to his climate change minister getting into the act, it is high time that the capital’s civic managers come clean on their plans for this precious forest.

Until then, those who have memories associated with picturesque Shakarparian will remain pugnacious about what is being done to their city, whether in the name of tree-culling or urban development.

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Header image: Trees have been removed from the Shakarparian area in Islamabad, turning patches into barren land. — Mohammad Asim/ White Star