Any reference to Lahore as the City of Gardens has a rather hollow ring these days. That proud tradition of rippling fountains and tall arching trees is all but gone, as the city develops apace. Under the Islamic monarchs gardens were central to town planning, and under the British every civil lines was lined with native trees. In both cases gardens afforded a release: a place where people could retire from the busy city outside into a quiet paradisiacal place. The Arabs of the desert longed for greenery, the Turks used them as resting places in their travels and for the Persians these were places where the line between heaven and earth was blurred. All Islamic cities had beautiful gardens and Lahore, at the confluence of civilisations, was no exception.

In the Indian subcontinent itself, according to the Puranas “the gods reside close to forests, rivers, and mountains, streams and in the cities which are full of gardens”. The Mughal emperor Babar built the gardens in this city as well as in Kalar Kahar, Dholpur and Agra, following the Turkish tradition of building rest stops on their journeys. His descendants took a more Persian approach. It was during the times of Jehangir and Shah Jehan that Lahore got its share of magnificent gardens: thus the proverb: “Isfahan and Shiraz united would not equal half of Lahore”.

In its days of glory Lahore had some of the finest gardens in the entire subcontinent. Prominent amongst them were the seven gardens strung like an emerald garland around the city: Anghori Bagh, Inayatabad Bagh, Faiz Baksh, Hyat Baksh, Farah Buksh, Mehtabi Bagh and Ghulabi Bagh. Three of these gardens survive today, though in dilapidated state. Collectively they are known as the Shalimar Gardens. Then there was Dai Anga’s magnificent estate decked with pavilions and a grand mosque. Much of it now lies buried under the Railway settlements. On the opposite end was another magnificent garden built by the daughter of Emperor Shah Jehan in Mozang. And there were scores of gardens in and around the walled city, Jehangir’s mausoleum, and Dara Shikoh’s baradari.
Even during the height of Sikh rule, during which many gardens disappeared, Ranjit Singh’s nobles did not abandon the age old tradition. A number of smaller gardens sprouted all over Lahore. For some strange reason, though, gardens were always the first victims of the conqueror’s axe, and these little gardens met a fate similar to that of their predecessors. One by one they were razed to the ground soon after the British annexed the Punjab in the nineteenth century.

A new Lahore was built on the ruins of the old Indo-Islamic Lahore by the British. The residential areas of the city and the roads were planted with thousands of indigenous trees. Mango, jaman, and sheesham trees still survive in the railway colonies where the British planted them to help protect the mem sahibs from the roiling dust of the Punjab plains. So lush was the greenery in these places that a road behind Mayo Gardens was referred to as the Thandi Sarak, the ‘cool road’.
With the reconquest of the subcontinent by its own inhabitants in 1947, once again the trees were the first to suffer. When the Thandi Sarak was widened, the fruit trees were felled and replaced with eucalyptus trees. A number of aging peepul trees and healthy-seeming mango trees can still be sighted in some areas, such as the Cantonment and Upper Mall, but their numbers are dwindling fast.

Since independence Lahore’s vegetation has borne the brunt of urban development. Hundreds of years ago the architect Ali Mardan and the horticulturist Mahar Sanga gifted us the Shalimar gardens. Today’s wise men and women of LDA and PHA are, sadly, a rather degraded version of their predecessors. A long time staff member of the Lahore Development Authority, Mr Khan, tells me: “Master plans are made only to be shelved. Most of the development work comes out of ‘political expediency’. Thus short term objectives continue at the expense of long term solutions. Widening of the roads and building underpasses is really not the answer. Piece-meal, or patchwork projects will further add to our woes.”

The only real effort to restore the original spirit of tree plantation was undertaken by a former governor of the Punjab, Lt Gen Jillani, who took the initiative to plant thousands of poplar, jaman, mango and guava trees along the city’s canal bank. Unfortunately, these orchards are slowly being devoured by settlements. House owners carve illegal driveways through the lines of trees for easy access to the main road. Underpasses and the widening of roads to accommodate traffic have sent hundreds of ancient trees to their deaths. Who now remembers the wide shady lanes of Gulberg’s Main Boulevard? Even where replacements are planted, our town planners seem to prefer eucalyptus or alestunia trees. Mind bogglingly, the latest addition is date palm trees, imported, it is rumoured, at high cost to the city.

Why are these trees unsuitable for this city? It’s really quite simple. These are foreign trees that our wildlife is not used to. Eucalyptus trees are notorious water-guzzlers. Few birds nest in them, and even bees do not approach them for the sharp smell. And they are not people-friendly either. Unlike indigenous varieties, such as mango, sheesham, neem, jaman and even kikar to an extent, they provide no shade in the beating summer heat.

Yet, despite these known facts, eucalyptus trees are planted with wild abandon during annual tree plantation drives. A district forest officer revealingly justifies the plantation to me: “We are required by international donors to plant this tree. Eucalyptus plantation is the most economic solution for the speedy forest cover the country so badly requires.”

Dr Abid Suleri of SDPI agrees. “Eucalyptus plantation was promoted during the Social Forestry Programme. It is, indeed, a donor-driven plant. Some say that forest departments had their own interest in promoting it but I have no evidence to comment on this. [Eucalyptus plantation] is only recommended where the water table is too high and the soil is saturated with water, as its transpiration rate is quite high. Its indiscriminate plantation has created all the troubles.”

While the scarcity of resources, as the forest department claims, could certainly be an issue, whatever resources are available are certainly not spent judiciously. “Eucalyptus is good for meeting the targets and has obvious ‘economic’ advantages for the forest department officials,” a forest officer confessed to me.
Tobacco manufacturers are also benefactors of eucalyptus plantation. According to Rina Sheikh, “The Pakistan Tobacco Company alone buys around two hundred thousand eucalyptus trees for its tobacco curing chambers.” Thus there is a single tiny benefit to the plantation of eucalyptus trees. But the cost to the environment of such short sighted planning measures and the continuing degradation of what little remains of Lahore’s leafy past suggests the city’s age-old reputation as a city of gardens is fast coming to an end.