Bringing Nature Back to the City
Andy Warhol’s Do It Yourself (Landscape) 1962 painting by
numbers emphasizes the alienation of city dwellers from the direct experience
of nature. For Any Warhol landscape was not misty hills in the countryside, but
gleaming rows of supermarket shelves.
The designers of the fifties were determined to invent
newness to distance themselves from the ugliness of two World Wars. By the 60s,
the “false joy”, as it has been called, became a very real celebration of the
city, with its consumerism, plastic products and mass culture.
50 years on, the world is aghast at enormous plastic islands
floating on the oceans, and the effects of climate change. As more than half
the world population lives in cities, connected by motorways that slice through
forests, mountains and valleys, what we consider nature, has shrunk dramatically.
Progress is now a sober discussion on sustainability, eco-friendly
and recyclable products . Cities are expected to house 75% of the world’s
population by 2030. Planners continue to pile up citizens in higher and higher
apartment blocks. And environmentalists grow hoarse pleading for more open
spaces, green and “livable” cities.
For city developers barren lands are seen as potential
properties, rather than a finely balanced wildlife and plant habitat. Mirza
Nadeem Beg, a banker turned bird
photographer, posts and hosts pictures
on his facebook of more than 30 species of birds spotted in Karachi, many in DHA’s phase 8, while we all know that new development and
housing will push them further out.
University of Karachi is one of the few areas left in the city that are
a haven for wildlife. We can still spot
monitor lizards and the occasional sand boa snake. University of Karachi scholars,
S Shahid Shaukat and Abid Raza have conducted a fascinating study of the birds
on campus and their nesting and feeding habitat, deploring the occasional
clearing away of what is seen as untidy plants.
Urban dwellers have a conflicted relationship with nature of
inclusion and exclusion. Andy Warhol also
said: “I think having land and not ruining it is the most beautiful art that
anybody could ever want to own”. T.F. Powys short story, “Lie Thee Down Oddity”
explores the innate human urge to control and tame nature. Cinema keeps returning to themes of the unpreparedness
and vulnerability of urban humans when faced with survival in nature.
For all our urban discomfort with nature, a romantic
nostalgia makes us buy mogra attar, place rose petals on graves, design flower
patterns on textiles, frame paintings or photographs of landscapes for our
walls, and enjoy planting our gardens. We watch National Geographic or Animal Planet
on TV, keep birds, deer, or goats as pets, visit the city zoo or feel
privileged to watch turtles laying eggs on the beach. WHO recommends a minimum of 9 square metres of
green space per person. The global
approach to green spaces has evolved to accommodate growing housing needs. Along with designated parks, other ways of adding green spaces are roadside planting, roof gardens, gardens incorporated in
elevated walkways, and vertical planting
on the sides of buildings as introduced
by French botanist Patrick Blanc.
Planting should encourage an ecosystem of birds and insects for which
indigenous plants should be used.
Like the “Open Mumbai” proposal, Karachi has rivers and
nalas to restore, creeks mangroves and beaches, neglected parks to cultivate
and surrounding lands to forest. Unfortunately the removal of nurseries from
greenbelts in the recent blitz on encroachments on pavements and roads makes
any plans to bring nature back to Karachi near impossible, given that Karachi
is a semi desert, and that the only source for plants are commercial nurseries.
Durriya Kazi
December 10, 2018
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