I AM a frequent visitor to Fatima Jinnah Park which is popularly known as F-9 Park or Capital Park. This park is to Islamabad what Hyde Park is to London and Central Park is to New York.

This is the green belt where numerous visiting heads of state and heads of government planted saplings which over the years grew into trees as a memento their visit to the federal capital of Pakistan.

Pakistan is among the countries in Asia with the highest annual deforestation rate. Fatimah Jinnah Park is home to hundreds of different varieties of trees.

These days the timber mafia is engaged in cutting trees from the forests of Islamabad, and Fatima Jinnah park which is spread over 759 acres is also under attack by the timber mafia.

These criminals bring poor women from the nearby villages on daily wages to the park to cut wood and collect branches.

The visitors to the park can see these women daily carrying stacks of wood crossing the park’s jogging and walking track even in the presence of the park’s security management and deliver the wood to pickups near the park’s broken eastern boundary wall on the service road opposite to F-10 Markaz.

The Capital Development Authority should know what is going on under their nose.

Alisher Khattak
Islamabad

Published in Dawn, February 18th, 2020