The Dawn, Bureau Report, 28/05/2001
http://www.dawn.com/2001/05/28/local17.htm
strategies to conserve natural and cultural heritage of NWFP, called for
mounting joint public-private sector effort to counter the threat to
extinction of heritage and environment. They discussed in detail the best
possible ways to conserve old buildings, historically important monuments,
remains of the ancient civilization in and around Peshawar besides looking
into the social and economic factors that were leading to the extinction of
cultural heritage. The sole resource person of the workshop, Dr Ijaz Anwar,
assistant professor at the National College of Arts, Lahore, who is also the
president of the Lahore Conservation Society, shared his ideas and
experiences of conserving old buildings. Through the help of projector he
displayed various slides showing various old buildings in Lahore which were
saved from getting removed by new structures and also those which could not
be saved from ruthless development.
"Like languages, only those cities survive the tide of the time which adapt
themselves with the evolutionary changes," said the artist from Lahore, a
recipient of Pride of Performance award from the Pakistan government. The
workshop was arranged by the IUCN-SPCS in collaboration with a group of
people of Peshawar representing different fields of life. He said that
landmarks of several cities were disappearing due to brazen construction of
odd-designed buildings, ruining the original beauty of the ancient cities
including Lahore, Peshawar, Multan etc. "Nobody has the right to remove
these landmarks as the older generations have sentimental association with
them. They are the sources of their childhood memories," said Dr Ijaz.
"All those who want to develop 'new Lahore' or 'new Peshawar' they should
develop the same outside Lahore and Peshawar, leaving the old cities
untouched as these have the cultural and heritage values for the coming
generations," he added. The participants, during the course of open
discussion on the subject, asked the watchdog organizations to take care of
the old structures by pressuring the government to do the needful. Dr Ijaz
said the recent exercises for cultural and heritage conservation through
'food street' (in Lahore and Peshawar) would hardly accomplish the desired
motives. Rather, the implementation of the idea had caused troubles for the
inhabitants of the area. "Instead of engaging gangsters of the area to make
the idea of food street success in Lahore, the government should have
involved notables and common people of the locality," he remarked.
Newsreport: "Vision 2025" - a Forest Conservation Plan and SCN (Apr 11, 2002)
Letter by SCN's Secretary Adil Zareef regarding the Historical Gor Gutheree (Mar 2002)
SCN Lends Support to CRCP Against Tree Felling at Ayub Park (Feb, 16th 2002)
SCN Arranges Poster Exhibition/Seminar on World Environment Day (Jun 05, 2002)