This year's monsoon season has started with a massive tragedy in Chitral district of Gilgit-Baltistan, 29 people were killed and at least 26 others went missing - also believed to have died - when flash floods washed away a helmet in a remote village near the Pak-Afghan border, destroying 37 houses and damaging another 48. Even soldiers, who normally take part in rescue operations, could not save their lives as the floodwaters swept away the border post they were guarding. Eight of them are feared dead. Since flash floods come suddenly following torrential rains, people have no time to escape to safe areas.
The tragedy underscores lack of management and planning on the part of the concerned authorities. Flash floods have been striking many areas in the GB as well as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with an increasing frequency. Part of the problem is haphazard growth of human habitations obstructing the natural flow of floodwaters. This calls for urgent measures such as construction of channels to control the path of flows, and retention ponds to hold excess water. Equally if not more important is the need to plant shrubs and trees since they are known to absorb water, impede flows and also prevent soil erosion, the main cause of landslides, like the one that recently hit Shangla in KPK damaging 30 houses. Luckily no one was killed in this incident, but landslides are a clear and present danger for the people living in the hilly areas.
Indeed, tree plantation drives are launched by the government each year, but more as a ritual than out of serious concern about sparseness of the county's tree cover. This year's campaign though seems to arise from recognition of the importance of trees as a defence against global warming, already manifesting its effects in the form of recurring floods. The climate change ministry has announced its plan to plant, during the current rainy season, 109 million trees in all provinces as well as in Azad Kashmir. An additional 14.2 million saplings are to be planted under the Prime Minister's five-year Green Pakistan programme. Sadly, however, what the right hand is doing the left hand continues to take away. A press report quoting an environmental expert points out that the government still issues licences for cutting trees, which is the biggest threat to forests along with illegal logging. Then there are development schemes in Lahore and Karachi playing havoc with trees. In Lahore 2,200 old trees have been chopped off, despite civil society protests, to make way for the Punjab Chief Minister's signal-free corridor, the Orange Line Train project and Canal Road Widening Project. Similarly in Karachi, the Green Line Bus project involves uprooting of as many as 20,000 trees. The government of course promises to replace them with new plantation, but as the report notes, even 1000 saplings cannot replace a grown tree. It is imperative therefore that the government not only grows more trees but also preserves the existing ones.