Photography and reporting by
Akhtar Soomro
Reporting by Syed Raza Hassan
Mulazim Hussain is proud of the trees he has planted.
Surrounded by neem saplings and vegetables sprouting up from scrubland in the Clifton district of Pakistan's largest city Karachi, the 61-year-old recalls a time a few years ago when the area was a giant, informal rubbish tip.
"Now there is greenery and happiness, children come in the evening to play, people come to walk," he said, speaking near a patch of trees amid a barren expanse bordered by the sea on one side and tower blocks and offices in the distance on the other.
"I have raised these plants like my children over the last four years," he added, taking a break from his labours amid a fierce summer heatwave.
Mulazim Hussain collects dry grass in his electric rickshaw in Karachi, July 9, 2021. REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro
Mulazim Hussain waters plants near the reservoir at the Clifton Urban Forest project in Karachi, July 2, 2022. REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro
Wearing a white and brown scarf around his head and a loose, cream-coloured shirt, Hussain collected dry grass from the ground and watered his cherished trees during a recent visit by Reuters reporters to the urban forest plantation project.
At the end of the day, he turned the hose on himself to cool off and clean up before heading home on his motorcycle.
The father of two is employed by an urban afforestation project in a government-owned park in Karachi's upmarket Clifton area that is run by Shahzad Qureshi, who has worked on similar projects in other Pakistani cities and overseas.
Before: Lakshman, 40, pushes a stick used to support a seedling at Clifton Urban Forest in Karachi, May 26, 2021. After: The same location is seen a year later on June 29, 2022. REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro
It is one of dozens of state-owned and private planting initiatives in Pakistan, where forest cover lags far behind average levels across South Asia. Trees absorb carbon dioxide, emissions of which contribute to warming global temperatures.
The aim in Clifton is to counterbalance rapid urbanisation in Karachi, a sprawling port city of some 17 million people where breakneck expansion of roads and buildings means there is less and less space for trees and parkland.
Qureshi wanted to provide shade for residents seeking escape from rising temperatures - a heatwave in 2015 killed more than 400 people in the city in three days, and temperatures in the surrounding Sindh region reached record highs this year.
A worker waters a portion of urban forest at Kidney Hill park in Karachi, June 3, 2021. REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro
The trees can also attract local wildlife, mitigate urban flooding and provide new sources of food.
"The bigger the tree cover of the city the more the cooling, with a difference of up to 10 (degrees) Celsius when you are surrounded by trees," he told Reuters, adding that the project only used native species.
"As you plant ... it attracts insects, and varieties of birds start coming. Presently mongoose are roaming around in the park, and four or five varieties of chameleon.
"You give them a home, you give them food and let it happen. Nature is so beautiful."
A worker prepares planting bags for seedling plants to be used for urban forest projects, at the Sindh Forestry Public Nursery in Karachi, May 25, 2021. REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro
Masood Lohar, 54, a development expert who has overseen Clifton Urban Forest, checks the soil in Karachi, May 26, 2021. REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro
DOES PLANTING HELP?
Overall forest cover in Pakistan, home to more than 220 million people, is around 5.4%, according to Syed Kamran Hussain, manager for the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province at the World Wide Fund for Nature's national branch.
That compares with 24% in neighbouring India and 14.5% in Bangladesh, and the previous government announced a mass forestation programme that envisaged planting 10 billion trees between 2019 and 2023.
"Pakistan is among the top 10 most vulnerable countries affected by global warming," Hussain said. "After oceans, trees are the second largest sink of carbon."
Some climate change experts question the impact of afforestation projects - the planting of trees where there were none before - in urban settings.
An aerial view shows a green patch of Azadirachta Indica trees over a graveyard with the city in the background in Karachi, Pakistan June 6, 2021. Picture taken with a drone. REUTERS/Stringer
The choice of species is important, because it affects the amount saplings may need to be watered - a major factor in Pakistan where water is generally scarce.
And whether to plant trees at all is not a simple question: the benefits are not always clear and significant investment is needed to nurture saplings into fully grown trees.
"What is missing from urban forestry is a holistic approach to the environment," said Usman Ashraf, a doctoral researcher in development studies at the University of Helsinki. He was not commenting specifically on the Karachi project.
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