{"id":3435,"date":"2019-09-13T07:15:26","date_gmt":"2019-09-13T02:15:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/umang.pk\/2019\/09\/karachi-mayor-has-taken-back-notice-over-clifton-park-says-forester-shahzad-qureshi-pakistan\/"},"modified":"2019-09-13T07:15:26","modified_gmt":"2019-09-13T02:15:26","slug":"karachi-mayor-has-taken-back-notice-over-clifton-park-says-forester-shahzad-qureshi-pakistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/2019\/09\/13\/karachi-mayor-has-taken-back-notice-over-clifton-park-says-forester-shahzad-qureshi-pakistan\/","title":{"rendered":"Karachi Mayor has taken back notice over Clifton park, says forester Shahzad Qureshi &#8211; Pakistan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/umang.pk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Karachi-Mayor-has-taken-back-notice-over-Clifton-park-says.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The dispute over the urban forest located in Block 5 of Karachi, Clifton ended when Mayor Wasim Akhtar met with the head of the Shahzad Qureshi forest in the park and planted a tree to extend an olive branch. <\/p>\n<p>Akhtar went to the forest site on Thursday and met with Shahzad Qureshi, who had previously adopted the land to develop the park.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;The mayor said he withdrew the notice and that I can continue with my work and that the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) will support me,&quot; Qureshi said, speaking with Dawn.com.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media  one-half  palm--one-whole  media--right    media--uneven  media--stretch\"><figcaption class=\"media__caption  \">Cancellation letter of KMC agreement with Shahzad Qureshi.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Akhtar, on the other hand, defended his previous cancellation action of the agreement on the development of the park, saying that Qureshi had violated it with impunity. \t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>&quot;He had to submit a monthly report to KMC where he is getting his financing and how he is using it; but not once did he do it,&quot; said the mayor. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;And in the last two years, since he took over, you can barely see the progress he had promised,&quot; he added.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;That&#39;s because they didn&#39;t let me work and made me go round and round in circles: &amp; # 39; go there to get the approved design, go there to get this signed &amp; # 39; &#8230; it&#39;s been a nightmare, take out this land project, &quot;Qureshi replied.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media  one-half  palm--one-whole  media--right    media--uneven  media--stretch\"><figcaption class=\"media__caption  \">Page 1 of the Qureshi agreement with KMC.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"media  one-half  palm--one-whole  media--right    media--uneven  media--stretch\"><figcaption class=\"media__caption  \">Page 2 of the Qureshi agreement with KMC.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Qureshi defended himself further and said that, as regards the funds, &quot;my accounts are very transparent. They are audited and online, not just for the mayor to see.&quot; \t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>He said that if that were not the case, and if people did not see that it was a good thing for the city, they would not have been able to &quot;convince 9,000 people&quot; to visit and plant trees there. In the last two years, about 15,000 trees have been planted.    <\/p>\n<p>Afflicted, Akhtar wished that this could have been handled in a &quot;more civilized manner.&quot; <\/p>\n<p>I was upset because Qureshi brought together people who used social networks to create an &quot;exaggeration&quot; and make a mountain from a hill.<\/p>\n<p>Admitting that it was the social networks that helped in his moment of anguish, the forest engineer said that &quot;he had tried all the secondary channels that I could gather, he had even sent a personal message to the mayor&#39;s ego, but he did not pay attention.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Things reached a critical point when about two dozen KMC employees entered and began destroying the park. That was when Qureshi became enraged and entered the social networks. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;Frankly, even I am surprised by the power of social networks and how quickly the situation was resolved.&quot;<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"5d7b51b51aa0c\">An absent government<\/h2>\n<p>&quot;The KMC did not have to uproot the garden and plants without mercy,&quot; said Amber Alibhai, general secretary of Shehri-Citizens for a Better Environment (CBE), adding that even if the municipality had developed differences with Qureshi, this did not It was the way forward to penalize him. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;And besides, it was none other than the horticultural department that led the wandering,&quot; he said, pointing out the contradiction.  <\/p>\n<p>Since 1964, when the Sindh government notified Kehkashan, there were 79 service plots (the adopted park is one of those that had remained in a dilapidated state for years), to develop as recreational spaces, said Shehri spokesman. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;How many have been developed by the KMC?&quot; He asked, adding that &quot;when people want to participate and do good, they find it extremely difficult to continue,&quot; referring to Qureshi.  <\/p>\n<h2 id=\"5d7b51b51aa2e\">&amp; # 39; Environmental terrorism &amp; # 39;<\/h2>\n<p>When qualifying the episode of the park and the uprooting of the plants, nothing less than &quot;environmental terrorism&quot;, Rafiul Haq, a member of the Horticultural Society of Pakistan, says he will sleep much better now that the dispute over the park is over.<\/p>\n<p>Haq said that the Qureshi exercise symbolized &quot;the effort of citizens to make this megacity resistant to disaster in the form of a heat wave in 2015.&quot; <\/p>\n<p>The best thing is that we don&#39;t have to wait years to see the fruits of our work. The Miyawaki model that Qureshi has adopted for its forest &quot;will improve a healthy environment in a short time and contribute to the supply of oxygen to the inhabitants of this concrete jungle,&quot; he added.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Fortunately, the KMC had not yet entered the forest or hacked trees there. Very soon people will think twice before cutting trees and plants anywhere,&quot; said Murtaza Wahab, an advisor to the Chief Minister of Climate Change and Environment from Sindh. <\/p>\n<p>Wahab said the Sindh Environmental Protection Authority will soon have its own police force that will take action against those who cause environmental pollution. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;Those who cut down or destroy trees will also be penalized,&quot; the Sindh government spokesman told Dawn.com, referring to the episode at the park in Clifton. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/pre>\n<\/pre>\n<p>Source: https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1504953\/karachi-mayor-has-taken-back-notice-over-clifton-park-says-forester-shahzad-qureshi<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The dispute over the urban forest located in Block 5 of Karachi, Clifton ended when Mayor Wasim Akhtar met with the head of the Shahzad Qureshi forest in the park and planted a tree to extend an olive branch. Akhtar went to the forest site on Thursday and met with Shahzad Qureshi, who had previously [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3436,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[11828],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}