Unplanned Urban Development at Agriculture Lands is a profound governance and ecological disaster
- We must reverse this course by urgently enforcing smart planning
By Balach Khan
Pakistan’s most urgent crisis isn’t always headline news: it’s the relentless, unplanned conversion of our fertile agricultural land into concrete. As a law student, I see this reckless sprawl as a profound governance and ecological disaster. We are sacrificing our food security and destroying the critical biodiversity that sustains our environment for the short-term profits of real estate developers. This is a massive failure of planning that demands immediate national attention.
Our best farmland is an irreplaceable national asset, the very foundation of our agrarian economy. When a builder paves over these fields—particularly those near major cities like Lahore and Islamabad—they permanently decommission a regenerative food factory. This short-sighted practice leaves us perilously exposed to food shocks and drives inflation. We are literally eating the “seed corn” of Pakistan’s future, prioritizing speculative gains over our children’s food security.
The ecological costs are equally devastating. These fields are not empty; they are vital, active ecosystems. Unplanned construction causes severe habitat fragmentation, isolating and destroying populations of native flora and fauna. For instance, unchecked development along the Margalla Hills buffer zones pushes species like the common leopard into dangerous conflict with residents, while wetlands are erased, collapsing insect and bird populations. We are trading the resilience of nature for the fragility of concrete.
Read: The Impact of Urbanization on Pakistan’s Agricultural Land
Read: The frustrating truth is that we have effective laws—like the Environmental Protection Act and various Town Planning Acts—but they are consistently undermined by powerful, well-connected lobbies and administrative indifference. The current system is operating exactly as designed by those who profit from environmental destruction.
We must reverse this course by urgently enforcing smart planning. I call on the media to treat the loss of farmland as a national security issue. Furthermore, our judiciary must actively intervene to uphold the constitutional right to a clean environment, demanding the immediate implementation of mandatory urban growth boundaries to protect the last remaining fertile land from being buried beneath concrete forever.
Read: The Uncontrolled Urbanization
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Balach Khan is a Law Student and lives in Islamabad. Email: balachkhan7776@gmail.com
