by Dr AR Beg
To cater for these needs Prof. Dr. Nawazish Ali Qazilbash established a Botanical Garden on the premises sometime in 1958. Despite the limited available space, it is a well planned institution comprising five sections i.e., Gymnosperms, Xerophytes, Herbal Drug Conservatory, a field experimental section and arboretum. The botanical garden to the budding botanists is like the hospital to the medical students. Not only has this garden been the source of supply of plant material for various education and research projects for nearly fifty years, but it must have also certainly served to produce more than one thousand experts with M.Sc., M.Phil and Ph.D. degrees.
The issue of construction of a building at the site of the only Botanical Garden is purely of technical and environmental nature and in no way a bone of contention between personalities or subject viewpoints. Of the four plots, enclosed by the U-shaped building of the botany department, only two plots, currently under dispute, receive full-day sunlight, a condition essential for proper growth, development and production of plants. It is possible to run research projects satisfactorily only if proper sunlight, and that, too, close to the laboratories, is available for such studies. Depending upon the type and number of research projects, which varies from year to year, a part or the whole of these plots is occupied by the potted project plants.
M.Sc., M.Phil. and Ph.D. students, mainly girls, do field research in these plots of the botanical garden. The girls work on their projects in a secluded, comfortable and secure environment on the department premises. The plots remain occupied by the potted plants for about eight months or so every year. Certainly, when the projects terminate, or when there is no project, the plots take up a barren look again, which is but natural.
The department has M. Sc. M. Phil. & Ph.D. projects including some funded by foreign aided agencies. The funding agencies do not approve a project for funding unless they are satisfied with the field and laboratory facilities.
These plots under dispute constitute the only land area available for field research studies, which cannot be spared for any purpose other than that specified above. If the Botany Department is deprived of this facility, the field research studies would come to stand-still and the department would be compelled to close field-oriented research altogether. It may be added that the Federal Minister for Science and Technology is giving great importance to training more and more people in original research.
If a building is somehow erected on the proposed site, not only will the field-oriented research in Botany Department cease to be, but also no land would be available even for the field-oriented research of the new department. Due to this action, not only will the long- established plants in these plots, required for study and research, be removed forever but the plants in the inner plots, shaded by the building, will also be suppressed for further growth and development. Some of the plants in the inner plots would never produce flowers and fruits, required for research.
In view of the said facts, and in my capacity as a senior citizen of this beloved country, I humbly submit that the current research and education facility in the form of a botanical garden in its entirety may not be impaired please.
DR. A.R. BEG
M.Sc. Hons. (Pb.), Ph.D. (France)
Botanist / Plant Ecologist
Peshawar
Address Herbarium, Botany Department
University of Peshawar
Peshawar, North-West Frontier
Pakistan
Contact Phone: [92] 91/ 921 6701, ext. 3042.
Correspondents Abdur Rashid, [email protected]
Updated Oct 2002
Notes Pakistan.
View staff
Person Herbarium
Code Institution Location
Naveed Akhtar PUP University of Peshawar Pakistan. North-West Frontier. Peshawar.
Tanvir Burni PUP University of Peshawar Pakistan. North-West Frontier. Peshawar.
Ghulam Dastagir PUP University of Peshawar Pakistan. North-West Frontier. Peshawar.
Musarrat Jabeen PUP University of Peshawar Pakistan. North-West Frontier. Peshawar.
Abdur Rashid PUP University of Peshawar Pakistan. North-West Frontier. Peshawar.
F. M. Sarim PUP University of Peshawar Pakistan. North-West Frontier. Peshawar
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