While the city is already struggling with its low and rapidly declining tree cover, hundreds of semi-mature neem trees along the eight-kilometre-long stretch of Hub River Road wait for their turn to be chopped down, one by one.
The trees are being cut down by the National Highway Authority (NHA) as it is currently working on its road-widening plan at Hub River Road.
The NHA, however, maintains that the trees were planted on land that falls under its jurisdiction and that the local town administration had been informed of the road rehabilitation and widening plan before the plantation.
“In the first phase, even before the plantation drive, we informed the town municipality about our road rehabilitation plan as it was due because the public needed it,” Asad Mehmood, assistant director-maintenance, NHA, told Dawn. He claimed that only a few trees had been cut under the current development work.
The NHA official said that in the second meeting, just before the development work began, the Town Municipal Corporation (TMC) Baldia chairman had asked NHA to inform the TMC about the area where it started road-widening work so that the relevant department could relocate the grown trees to another location.
To gain data on the relocated trees, Dawn tried to obtain information on the tree plantation drive and the number of trees relocated or lost under the current development phase from TMC Baldia. However, the Public Relations Officer (PRO) did not respond to calls despite multiple attempts.
A deeper dive into the website of the town municipality by Dawn revealed five tree plantations, with a total cost of Rs14,891,304, and each drive costing around Rs3 million, have been carried out to date without mentioning a specific initiation or completion timeframe. The data available does not mention the number and species of tree saplings planted.
From 2023 onwards, hundreds of saplings could be seen planted along the entire stretch, many being washed away by intermittent rain or dying because of sewage-mixed water with high pH levels. This was particularly the case with all the saplings planted opposite Saeedabad Police Training Centre.
However, many saplings survived and, after almost three years, reached a considerable height of around 3-5 metres, but are now on a declining path not only after the initiation of road rehabilitation work, but also owing to lack of maintenance.
Despite TMC Baldia taking responsibility for relocating the mature trees instead of letting them be chopped down, a visit by Dawn confirmed no such attempts were made, as many juvenile green trees have vanished from the sites where the road has been widened or still stand in the way where further work is about to be undertaken.
According to experts, relocating mature, 3-5 metre tall trees is not a difficult task. “Neem trees are highly fit and ecologically sustainable in Karachi’s environment, and relocating any mature tree with a height of 3-4 metres or above is not an arduous task. It can easily take root if relocated to a proper site where it gets water,” Tahir Ali, a Karachi-based botanist and researcher, said while talking to Dawn.
Generally, Mr Ali added, the first eight to 12 months remain crucial for the survival of any tree sapling. During this duration, they need water every week or every 15 days, and after reaching one year of growth, their survival rate increases.
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