With more than half of the world’s GDP depending on nature, Islamabad too was meant to grow with it, not at its expense.
The master plan for the capital city was hailed for including a protected area, the Margalla Hills National Park, right at its doorstep. Islamabad’s green belts, horticultural parks and urban forests, such as the Shakarparian forest, not only act as climate regulators but also perform the vital functions of carbon sequestration, habitat preservation and soil stabilisation, all of which are important in mitigating disaster risks, human health challenges and ensuring stable economic growth.
That is why reports of around 40,000 trees being felled in the Shakarparian area to develop infrastructure feel so jarring. This only deepens the contradiction between what the government says on the global stage and what is happening on the ground.
Ranked as the most vulnerable country to climate change, Pakistan’s urban population stands at the forefront of this crisis, with very little being done, let alone being promised, for them. For Islamabad, in particular, climate change is not a distant threat anymore; it is very much a present reality. Summers are hotter, heatwaves last longer, and rainfall is more intense and less predictable. In this reality, urban trees are not ornamental features; they form an integral part of the city’s basic climate defence system.
The loss of mature trees is never trivial, particularly in an urban biodiversity enclave such as the Shakarparian forest, which formed the core habitat for almost 200 species of animals and plants. While the government has stated that the loss will be offset through a ten-to-one tree replanting ratio, they fail to understand that planting new saplings, even at scale, does not replace what is lost in any meaningful timeframe.
This exercise presents a serious contradiction with Pakistan’s climate messaging. Very recently, at COP30 in Belem, Pakistan presented itself as climate-vulnerable but climate-responsible. There was talk about nature-based solutions, ecosystem restoration and the promise of generating billions of dollars through carbon markets. Real conversations and commitments but not backed by intentions and actions – and yet we wonder why our climate finance needs of GBP275 billion are not given enough attention at the global scale.
Globally, carbon markets and climate finance frameworks rely on credibility, trust and integrity. It took Brazil more than 15 years of conservation-led confidence-building to finally operationalise its carbon markets. Cutting down mature urban forests to facilitate infrastructure development, under public management, directly undermines that logic. Having a rationale for that makes it even worse. As a Pakistani conservation professional working in the international space, it only becomes hard to argue for high-integrity carbon strategies while eroding some of the most accessible and visible carbon and biodiversity assets we have.
Environmental conservation is not anti-urban growth. Infrastructure is essential for development. However, climate-smart sustainable development must be grounded in evidence-based decision-making and the application of internationally recognised frameworks such as the Mitigation Hierarchy. This approach prioritises avoiding unnecessary environmental loss, followed by minimising and mitigating impacts, restoring affected ecosystems and, as a last resort, using offsets. Urban forests should be treated as assets to be strengthened, not obstacles to be cleared and compensated for later.
Despite this, Islamabad can still lead by example. With strong resolve and informed citizens, it must strive to protect its remaining urban forests by being transparent about decisions that affect them, particularly in Environmental Impact Assessments, basing decisions on evidence and data and genuinely integrating nature-based solutions into planning. This would not only send a powerful signal that Pakistan’s climate commitments are more than words but also ease access to global climate finance.
Credibility on climate, at the end of the day, is not built in conference halls but in the everyday decisions we make about land, trees and the kind of cities we choose to live in.
The writer is an international conservation professional who specialises in sustainable infrastructure.
