Our Correspondent
PESHAWAR: A 100-year old Date tree has been cut down in the Civil Secretariat apparently to create space for the construction of a building, sources told this scribe here.
According to the sources, the date tree, which was located near the offices of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Health Minister and Secretary Health, has been cut down on the instructions of the secretariat authorities.
That date tree produces more than 30 KG of date fruit yearly source added.
The act has annoyed botanists and environmentalists as they think it was a violation of the law.
“Any tree which is more than a 100 years old is usually considered a national heritage. Such trees are never cut down rather the government protects them,” said Prof. Dr. Abdur Rasheed, former chairman of the Botany department, University of Peshawar.
Talking to this scribe he remarked that on one hand the PTI-led KP government had started its billion tree tsunami (plantation drive) project to grow one billion new plants in the province, while on the other, it cut down a century-old tree, which could be preserved as a national heritage.
“Cutting such trees is not only bad from environmental point of view, it is also the destruction of heritage,” he said.
“We need to grow more and more plants and discourage the practice of cutting trees for the sake of erecting new buildings,” he stressed.
