Wahab launches urban forest project at Bagh Ibne Qasim

The adviser to the Sindh chief minister on law and environment, Barrister Murtaza Wahab, on Sunday launched the project to plant an urban forest at the beach view site of the Bagh Ibne Qasim in the Clifton area.

Wahab, who also acts as the spokesperson for the Sindh government, also planted a tree sapling on the occasion to formally launch the urban forest campaign at the park. He said that the scheme was under way to plant different trees and plant saplings in the park. He added that the provincial government had the utmost resolve to make Karachi and other areas of Sindh cleaner and greener places.

He said that every concerned citizen had to play their due part in this regard by planting a sapling for increasing the green cover at their homes, streets, and neighbourhoods. He lamented the situation where everybody was willing to sit under the shadow of a tree but no one was interested to plant the same. He urged the general public to lend support to the Sindh government’s drive for planting trees to promote greenery and improve the environmental conditions.

The law and environment adviser said the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation and District Municipal Corporations had been joining hands with the Sindh government to plant trees in the city. He vowed that similar urban forests would be established in District Central of the city.

Wahab said trees would be planted wherever urban space was available for such a good cause. He added that the heavy monsoon rains of the last year had damaged the urban forest in the Lyari area.

He said the government was also planning to engage schoolchildren in the tree plantation campaigns in the rest of the province. He was of the view that the results of various campaigns to promote greenery in the province would have been a lot better had indigenous species of trees been planted in the city instead of the large scale plantation of conocarpus erectus.

A day earlier on Saturday, Wahab inaugurated a reverse osmosis (RO) water filtration plant in the newly established Keamari district of the city. The RO plant having the capacity to treat 2,000 gallons of subsoil water daily was installed at the Government Boys’ School Younusabad where over 1,100 students are enrolled.

The Sindh government collaborated with the Pakistan Navy and an international non-governmental organisation, Muslim Hands, to install the RO plant. Speaking on the occasion, Wahab said the Pakistan Peoples Party had been fully acting upon its manifesto to serve the general public.

He said the Sindh government had been spending the financial resources in the best possible manner to serve the general masses. The installation of RO plants was the best form of public service by converting saline subsoil water into clean drinking water, he added.

Wahab said the installation of the RO plant was indeed good news for the concerned school students and area residents. He also disclosed that tree plantation would also be carried out in the area around the school. He said the collaboration between the Sindh government, charities, and Pakistan Navy was the best combination to serve the masses in the best possible way.