Poisoning the earth
13 February 2018
Shabbir Ahmad Rana, the Central Zone chief conservator of forests, has got his facts all wrong. This is evident from a letter of October 2017 duly signed by him and sent to the Gymkhana Golf Club management committee in response to a letter written by the committee seeking his ‘expert’ advice on their proposed elimination of eucalyptus trees blighting the green.
Paragraph 2 of the letter reads: “I would also like to clarify that large sized trees do not eat up all water given to grassy lawns but they use only that which leaches down to the deep soil. Therefore, the hoax created by vested interests mafia or those with no scientific knowledge is baseless and highly detrimental to the environment. The reason for water level going down is not the trees but it is due to the shrinkage of water catchment areas in the uphills and foothills and resultantly depth of turbines in plans (sic) has to be increased throughout the province and removal of even all the trees from the province will not subside this problem. The recommendations of the Agriculture University are not, therefore, scientifically based.”
Read more »Labels: Ecology, Governance
posted by Salman Rashid @ 08:45,
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Out of One's Depth
19 July 2017
For close to seventeen years, a Peanuts comic strip has been taped to the wood panelling in my study. I just love it. It shows Frieda, the curly-haired girl, come running to Snoopy’s doghouse shouting ‘Awake, awake!’ In the second panel she says to Snoopy lying on his back on top of his doghouse, ‘There’s a herd of rabbits heading this way!’
And then, with Snoopy now on his stomach looking at her, Frieda with her hands folded in front begs, ‘You’re the only one in the world who can save us!’ And Snoopy, the one person in the world who knows what he is and what he can do or not do, turns around on his back and, the very picture of nonchalance, says, ‘We’re in trouble.’
That’s it.
Labels: Governance, Life, Society
posted by Salman Rashid @ 13:02,
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JIT
06 July 2017
One thing I fail to understand is how so many educated, smart, well-read persons having seen the world and having lived all their lives in Pakistan can yet be fooled by the staged tragi-comic farces thrown at us from time to time. And these shows are gratis, I may add, for if they who toss them in our direction were to demand money and extract it from us by the powers invested in them by the State, there would be little we could do.
The latest such drama, ongoing and promising to be entertaining us to tears even in the year 2022, is the Joint Investigation Team investigating the Sharif family. Although from the statements of the brats of the family it seems they are investigating the JIT and not vice versa. Without delving in the statements of the previous two brats, the outpourings of the female over the last two days are telling.
Read more »Labels: Governance, Life, Society
posted by Salman Rashid @ 10:05,
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Open Letter to Two Important Persons
20 February 2017
Syed Abu Ahmad Akif
Federal Secretary
Ministry of Climate Change
Islamabad.
6 February 2017
Subject: The Looming Water Scarcity and our Choice of Thirsty Trees
Dear Akif,
Today’s (6 Feb) Dawn carries a report of a conference on the water scarcity that is now a certainty for Pakistan. It is one thing that we are completely mindless of the millions of gallons of clean water wasted every day in official and private bathrooms with leaky WCs. I see it all the time and I can point out at least a few dozen in the building you occupy in Islamabad.
Then there are those educated ignorant who daily have their driveways and cars washed with running garden hoses. Tell them about the upcoming water scarcity and hear, ‘Water is Allah’s gift, it can never run out.’
The government has no scheme to address this wastage. I assure you; simply holding seminars is not going to save our water.
To top it all, since 1960 when Ayub ordered ‘forestation’ in Pakistan we have made only incorrect choices so far as tree species are concerned. First we had eucalyptus, 6 sub-species of it imported from Australia, planted wholesale across Pakistan. In the 1990s Nuclear Institute for Agriculture and Biology (NIAB, Faisalabad) told us that each eucalyptus was a tube well drawing upward of 100 litres in every 24-hour cycle. We had millions upon millions of tube wells sucking away our precious water.
But no one was listening. Punjab had to thrice – yes THRICE – ban eucalyptus. Even today, thirteen years after the third banning, I see nurseries across this sorry province and the rest of this sorrier country with billions of eucalyptus saplings.
But soon an idiot called Mustafa Kamal (ex mayor Karachi) saw conocarpus in Dubai and imported it wholesale to blight this entire country with this ultra-thirsty bane. Imported from Central South America and Oceania, this tree is a very, very, very thirsty species. In Makran – a water scarce part – where it grows in the tens of thousands, this accursed tree is called Mustafa Kamal! Folks plant it because ‘it grows fast’. I have never figured out why we are in such a hurry to get to a green desert hell.
Incidentally, retired foresters who were at the forefront of the eucalyptus invasion back in the 1960s also said that tree grew fast. This is patent rubbish. Our collective inferiority complex forces us to choose imported trees.
Dubai has learned its lesson: they have eradicated the curse of the conocarpus. But they learned their lesson only when its roots burrowed into and damaged water mains and sewers. We, sadly, will not learn ours even then. Couple the tree’s thirst with the very high release of allergens. If paper mulberry (imported from China circa 1960s) was not enough to put sense into our puny heads, neither will conocarpus. God willing, we shall all die of asthma!
Last year, NHA removed thousands of eucalyptus; I was very happy and hoped the empty space will be taken up by indigenous species. Perish the thought, however. Hundreds of thousands of conocarpus have taken up that space! Not only that, those who cut the eucalyptus did not know that the stumps left behind coppice wildly. Like the Hydra, each stump erupts into a dozen new trees.
Now, we have millions of more eucalyptus along M-2 that will be sucking up hundreds of times more water from our dwindling aquifer. And in between these forests of eucalyptus are rows of conocarpus. I will needlessly reiterate: both trees draw heavily from the water table. They are in a great way guilty of depleting our sub-soil water.
My question is: why are we so stupid?
Will I be asking for too much if I request you and Shahid Tarar, under whose sway the Motorways fall, to order an immediate eradication of conocarpus and eucalyptus? The space must be given over to indigenous species. That way, you will also give respite to our birdlife which, with the wholesale destruction of habitat, has been pushed into small pockets.
There are other things we need to talk about. Mainly our infatuation with palm trees and dwarf species. I can only tell you that arresting climate change will forever remain elusive: all your initiatives are self-defeating if you at the same time blight this land with alien and thirsty species. To play a positive and telling part in arresting climate change, you need trees of large bio-mass. Trees like our pipal, banyan etc.
Yours sincerely,
PS: Email address given below is defunct. Current address: odysseuslahori@gmail.com
CC:
Shahid Ashraf Tarar
Chairman National Highways Authority
Labels: Ecology, Governance
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Traffic Wardens
20 January 2017
The grey-uniformed traffic wardens were a brainchild of Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi when he was chief minister Punjab several years ago. They system came as a breath of fresh air. No longer the ‘Oye! Khlo ja oye, teri tay main etc etc.’ Suddenly road users were treated as humans for the first time since the 1960s. For the first time in many years, a traffic police officer would use his motorcycle to give chase to an errant driver.
Since the 1960s? you ask. That was when those white-clad British-trained traffic sergeants on white Harley-Davidson motorcycles (even tricycles) began to retire. Sadly, for some unknown reason, those well-trained and courteous officers failed to leave behind a legacy. We were left with uncouth yahoos instead.
Read more »Labels: Governance, Life, Society
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Fools that Rule
24 May 2016
Every day one reads something in the papers and cannot but wonder what sort of fools and retards rule the various government agencies that mismanage this blighted land. Today (21 May 2016) I am told, ‘The Lahore Ring Road Authority [LRRA] has made a plan to fix iron fencing at various sections of the road to stop pedestrians from crossing the road and causing accidents.’ (Dawn, Metro section).
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| A small bit of steel fence removed from right in front of a narrow street to give free passage |
We are further informed by the blockheads of LRRA that this effort will ‘force’ pedestrians to use overhead bridges meant for them to cross the road. What country do these idiot shitheads live in?
Labels: Governance, Lahore, Life, Society
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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How the State has fallen
12 April 2016
‘A group of lawyers on Tuesday locked a woman additional district & sessions judge in her courtroom allegedly for not rendering a favourable decision. AD&SJ Najaf Shahzadi and her staff remained locked in the courtroom for hours. District and Sessions Judge Nazir Gajiana took notice of the incident and got the courtroom unlocked. The D&SJ summoned the lawyers and the woman judge and reconciled the matter.’
The above is the transcript of a news item filed by Dawn’s staff reporter on Wednesday 6 April 2016. It illustrates the most abjectly shameful abdication of the authority by the State of Pakistan. It is all the more appalling because this is not the first time such a reprehensible act has been enacted.
Read more »Labels: Governance, Life, Pakistan, Society
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Another Sad Joke
10 April 2015
Today, 9 April 2014, there appears in newspapers this ad. It says that it is essential to have only that computerised registration plate on your vehicle that is issued by the Excise and Taxation Department. This is such a crock of shit!
I would like to know who is going to enforce this law. We have hundreds, nay thousands, of all kinds of laws that have never been enforced because our rulers are spineless. To match them is a bureaucracy that was castrated during our eleven year-long night of the great incubus Zia ul Haq. Years after the untimely death of the dictator the bureaucracy has become so accustomed to the sloth induced by him that it has no wish to change itself. And of the political class, the least said the better.
Aside: I say ‘untimely death’ of the accursed dictator. It was most untimely in that it was very, very long overdue. The curse should have been stillborn!
Read more »Labels: Governance, Pakistan
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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