Islamabad’s Natural Habitat Under Siege Due To Urban Expansion

Ali Jabir

Islamabad: Once enjoying a unique status for its serene evenings and amusing landscape, the capital is fast losing its beauty, tranquilly, biodiversity, and habitat due to rapid urbanisation in the suburbs of the main city.

Enjoying a unique identity as the only capital in the world with nature and human settlements coexisting simultaneously in an ecosystem, it is now helplessly losing its wetlands, forest cover, and water resources.

Even rare species like Asian Leopards are under threat of displacement, or rather extinction, at the hands of urbanization, an exploding population, expanding road infrastructure, and a lack of attention by city developers towards nature.

“Gone are the days when sitting anywhere in the capital—any green belt or park—used to amuse residents, arousing within them a feeling of love for nature,” said an elderly Muhammad Bashir, who had come to the city for a job in the mid-seventies.

“Couple of decades, it was calm and cool with lush green belts, flowers-filled parks, the Lotus Lake, Shakarparian, Damn-e-Koh, and Pir Sohawa—all presently a friendly and natural feeling,” he stated.

“But now the situation has changed entirely. The serenity has been replaced with blowing horns and unpleasant noise due to massive construction and traffic loads, and the air is adulterated with emissions, making us feel foul like never before,” Bashir said.

The total area of the federal capital is 906 square kilometres, with a specified additional area of 3,626 square kilometres, including the Margalla Hills National Parks in the north and northeast.

The city is divided into five zones, and Zone IV is the largest in terms of area, whereas Zone I is the largest in terms of developed residential area. There is barely any sector of the metropolis that lacks trees or any open space like greenbelts or parks.

But, with the population influx, the roads are falling short of traffic, and green belts are littered with waste and, in some places, drying up due to improper attention.

The city also receives a whopping 1143 millimetres of average rainfall per year, but still, it is grappling with the issue of water scarcity because it has to employ the resource initially established for 200,000 people, now for over two million people.

The International Water Management Institute (IWMI), the Pakistan Council of Research on Water Resources (PCRWR), and the Capital Development Authority (CDA) jointly executed a rainwater recharging wells project to replenish the aquifer of the capital that had dropped to an alarming level.

The initiative, in its pilot phase, injected almost 1.8 million gallons of rainwater into the aquifer that was drying up due to massive water drilling by households.

“The water courses passing through scientifically developed F-6 and F-7 sectors were once the ideal habitats for the most trafficked mammal pangolins,” said an official of the Islamabad Wildlife Management Board.

“We received several calls by residents reporting the presence of pangolins in these areas that were rescued by the board workers,” the official said, mentioning that Margalla Hills is also home to leopards, jackals, barking deer, and many other elusive animals, birds, and insects.”

“Then there is a variety of plants that ensure healthy ambience and much-needed oxygen for the capital residents,” he added. “All these plant and animal species contribute to the naturally rich ecosystem of Margalla Hills National Park.”

With the rising population pressure, the civic authorities are compelled to widen roads and launch new residential sectors with massive construction activity to facilitate the populace.

Recently, Margalla Avenue has been developed as an alternate route to avoid traffic jams on the way to entering the capital and to enter the capital from residential areas like Taxila, Sangjani, and Wah Cantt to avoid usual traffic jams.

The Avenue will be entering near Sangjani to travel all along from Shah Allah Ditta, D-12 sector, and will culminate at Margalla Avenue, denuding the forest cover and creating a fissure between the natural habitat as it will be barricaded from both sides.

According to officials of the Capital Development Authority, the road infrastructure was important and crucial as the population had increased exponentially with over a million vehicles registered in the capital.

“Therefore, if only one-third of these vehicles travel on the roads, the existing infrastructure falls quite insufficient to bear the traffic load. That’s why we need new roads,” the officials argued.

However, they pleaded that environmental setbacks could be mitigated through the plantation and other interventions suggested by the experts.

The motorway of Islamabad, which had swathes of towering trees, making this leading thoroughfare a majestic pathway, is also plagued with lowering tree cover and mounting traffic load, resulting in an average temperature rise and deteriorating air quality for residents of twin cities.

The CDA environment wing reveals that thousands of decades-old trees are removed to construct a road or develop a specific area or settlement, and saplings planted in response could take decades to become a real substitute.

If development is much needed, the ecosystem and habitat are needed the most. Therefore, the authorities must create a balance, ensuring that the ecosystem and habitat are not ruined in the name of development and that citizens are not barred from exercising their right to breathe in cleaner air and live a healthy life.

Ali Jabir is an Islamabad-based APP staffer. All information and facts provided are the sole responsibility of the writer.