Pakistan’s environmental crisis is no longer just a story of weak enforcement, but a testament to an outdated legal architecture that has failed to evolve with the realities of climate change.
The Pakistan Environmental Protection Act, 1997 led to the basis of institutional structure for environmental governance, including the Environmental Protection Agency, Environmental Impact Assessment and Environmental Tribunals. However, after the 18th Amendment, all four provinces enacted and amended the act to enforce environmental regulations tailored to their needs.
Pakistan did not lack environmental statutes, but a contemporary, coherent, and enforceable environmental jurisprudence and jurisdictional framework able to respond to the magnitude and nature of modern environmental degradation. This has been aggravated after the 18th Amendment. Devolution itself was not the problem. But what ensued was multiple provincial statutes, uneven regulatory capacity, fragmented enforcement, and persistent confusion over who acts, when and with what authority when environmental harm is large-scale, cross-sectoral, and urgent.
As a result, local Environmental Protection Departments (EPDs) tend to operate within a limited procedural framework, whereas larger-scale ecological devastation is relegated to grey areas between EPDs and development authorities, municipalities, irrigation departments, cantonments and environmental tribunals. This is exactly where the law is failing the public at large.
That failure is visible on the ground, where environmental resources do not recognise jurisdictional boundaries. In Rawalpindi and Islamabad, the Korang, Soan and Layi streams, along with connected drainage corridors and floodplains, have increasingly come under pressure from encroachment, dumping, unplanned construction and illegal or poorly regulated development in ecologically sensitive zones. These are ecologically sensitive areas that act as natural buffers and are being transformed into built environments, thereby posing flood risks and undermining water quality.
The Islamabad High Court’s Environmental Commission report in the larger Islamabad planning litigation specifically acknowledged the environmental sensitivity of areas around the Korang River and the Rawal Lake catchment, and linked illegal urban sprawl in these areas to consequences for the fundamental rights of residents under Article 9 of the constitution. This has been refined under the 26th Amendment, which introduced Article 9A that establishes the fundamental right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.
Similarly, in Lahore, the River Ravi is not merely a river under developmental stress but an example of how environmental law has failed to restrain floodplain pressure, housing expansion and ecologically harmful interventions. Encroachments along the Ravi by housing societies and infrastructure expansion continue to alter its ecological character, reduce its flood-absorption capacity, and weaken its role as a natural buffer against floods.
Despite legal instruments such as the Punjab Irrigation, Drainage, River Encroachment Act 2023, which clearly outlaws construction in floodplains, and the Environmental Protection Department’s power to regulate pollution dumping in the river. As a result, environmental protection is frequently displaced by development priorities, and there is little distinction between projected development and ecological deterioration.
The effects of such failures in environmental governance are even greater in Karachi. The river tributaries, stormwater drains and natural outflows linked to the Lyari and Malir river systems have been encroached upon or blocked to such an extent that even a moderate rainfall paralyses the city. Days or weeks of water standstill have ceased to be exceptions and have become common occurrences. It is not solely a breakdown in municipal management, but an indication of a more profound breakdown in environmental legislation to protect urban hydrology.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa offers another stark example. Frequent floods along the Swat River and its banks have underscored the dangers of allowing construction in risk-prone areas. Hotels and commercial buildings are still constructed on the banks of rivers and even after disaster strikes, they are rebuilt in the same locations that are prone to such catastrophes. Anti-encroachment operations launched following such incidents only highlight the lack of preventive governance. A system that reacts after loss of life and infrastructure rather than preventing risk is not environmental governance, but is institutional delay.
The same mindset extends to the governance of forest and urban ecology. In Islamabad and other urban centres of the Potohar region, mature native trees such as Shisham, Peepal, Amaltas and Kikar are regularly cleared under the guise of development and beautification. They are replaced by ornamental trees, such as palm trees, that are not ecologically suitable for the local climate. These practices lower biodiversity, undermine ecological resilience and disrupt natural ecosystems. Such plantation drives, which overlook native ecology, are not real environmental restoration but symbolic compliance that does not address real environmental loss.
This is why Pakistan’s environmental jurisprudence has become mission-critical for sustainable development. The courts have repeatedly stepped in where regulatory systems have failed. For instance, Shehla Zia v Wapda (1994) opened the constitutional space for environmental rights and paved the way for the evolution of environmental law in Pakistan. Similarly, Asghar Leghari v Federation of Pakistan (2015) moved environmental adjudication into the realm of climate governance and state accountability.
Sheikh Asim Farooq v Federation of Pakistan (2019)) strengthened the principles of public trust, intergenerational equity and ecological protection. Likewise, D G Khan Cement Company Ltd v Government of Punjab (2021) emphasised climate-conscious decision-making and protection of environmentally fragile zones. Also, Raja Zahoor Ahmed v Capital Development Authority (2019) highlighted the need for climate-resilient urban planning. Shah Zaman Khan v Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (2024) addressed the protection of natural resources in the province, specifically focusing on combating deforestation and promoting climate justice. And in Naimutullah Khan v Federation of Pakistan (2022), the Nasla Tower case, the Supreme Court made it unequivocally clear that even completed construction cannot stand if it violates ecological and legal principles, including encroachment upon natural waterways.
More recently, in Muhammad Rameez v Province of Punjab (2026), the court treated deforestation in the Takht Pari Forest as a matter of public interest, reaffirming that forests constitute a public trust and that their protection is a constitutional obligation tied to environmental stability, biodiversity conservation and the fundamental rights of present and future generations.
Yet despite this progressive and evolving jurisprudence, the operational environmental legal system remains archaic. Initially created to address traditional environmental conflicts of a more individualistic nature, environmental tribunals are not well-suited to systemic environmental degradation that affects the public at large. Like floodplain encroachments, the dumping of construction waste, post-EIA master plan alterations and the obstruction of drainage systems are treated as technical disputes rather than systemic environmental violations. When such matters remain pending before tribunals for months or years, while damage continues, the law fails in its most fundamental purpose.
In Pakistan, the precautionary principle is part of environmental jurisprudence, which stipulates that preventive measures should be taken in advance to avoid irreversible environmental damage. But the present practice is the opposite of this, where action is taken after damage to ecosystems has occurred. Delay is never neutral in environmental governance; it is inherently destructive. In environmental governance, delay is not neutral; it is destructive.
In addition, the fines and penalties imposed under existing environmental laws are insufficient to deter violations. Fines and procedural notices of minor nature do not keep the influential actors accountable and environmental damage of large magnitude should be addressed as criminal negligence and not as the customary violation of regulations.
Pakistan’s vulnerability to climate change only highlights the urgency of reforms to environmental law and enforcement mechanisms. Increasing threats of floods, heatwaves, droughts, air pollution and water shortages are threatening the country and environmental degradation is worsening the situation. There are also increasing strains on natural resources, leading to new water and land wars in our region. In this kind of environment, it is not viable to continue relying on a legal system developed in 1997.
As a way forward, the environmental laws must evolve to recognise that environment and climate change are dynamic, interconnected and central to governance and development. So, jurisdictional clarity should be established so that cases involving environmental harm to the public that are of public interest are not delayed by procedural hurdles or dismissed by environmental tribunals on jurisdictional grounds.
The Environmental Impact Assessments must also be enforced as substantive safeguards, not procedural formalities with penalties significantly enhanced to create real deterrence. Most importantly, there must be a fundamental shift in how development itself is understood. Because development that destroys rivers, blocks drainage systems, removes forests and weakens ecological resilience is not development but a deferred disaster.
Pakistan stands at a critical moment where environmental degradation is accelerating faster than legal response. If the law continues to lag behind reality, it will become complicit in this destruction.
The writer is an environmental scientist and leads the ecological sustainability and circular economy programme at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), Islamabad. She is also a member of the Punjab Climate Change Committee.
