ISLAMABAD: Khizar Wali Chishti was a young boy when he lost a leg to polio, and though he continued his early education in his hometown of Pakpattan in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province, an enduring memory of his childhood was spending time in the solace of a large neem tree in the courtyard of his home.
Years later, when the tree was cut down to create more living space in the house, the loss had a lasting effect on the young boy. By the time he was in his twenties, Chishti had a purpose: to plant trees and wage a fight against climate change in Pakistan, one of the countries most vulnerable to climate threats.
Since 2014, Chishti has traveled across Pakistan and planted 152,000 plants all over the country, aided by an organically driven network of students, teachers and other volunteers mobilized using social media.
On June 4, Chishti was among 20 individuals recognized for their work by ‘Plant 4 Pakistan,’ a flagship project of the government’s Green Pakistan Initiative that focuses on ecosystem restoration, climate change combat, social and agricultural plantations, and community engagement in environmental conservation.
“Before recognizing Chishti, we have checked and vetted his work with our staff in different cities and are impressed by his tree plantation efforts and follow-up on the plants,” Khawaja Mazhar, the coordinator of the Plant 4 Pakistan project, told Arab News.
“He has a good model of planting trees, mostly in government and private institutions, by urging them to take care of the plants so they do not go to waste. I have seen him planting trees for the last five years and working on building teams, motivating communities to contribute to the Green Pakistan [Initiative].”
Chishti, now 33 and a schoolteacher with a Master’s degree in Geography, leads a team of nearly 1,000 volunteers, mostly students from across Pakistan, who assist him in planting trees in their native villages, towns and cities, a mission he began in 2014. The young man also owns a nursery that distributes around 100,000 saplings annually and maintains a log of trees planted by his team on his Facebook profile.
“I have dedicated my entire life to planting trees and aim to achieve the monumental goal of planting 10 million in my lifetime,” Chishti, now a father of two, told Arab News this week. “I have planted 152,000 plants all over Pakistan. I have a nursery to give plants free of cost.”
Chishti said he had traveled to various cities to engage teachers and students to join his mission.
“They register with me and are added to regional WhatsApp groups where we coordinate plantation drives, transport saplings, and collaborate with local activists to source free plants,” he said.
“My next target is to visit 400 cities nationwide to train 10,000 children in indoor kitchen and rooftop-gardening.”
To ensure sustainability, Chishti primarily plants trees in government institutions, such as schools, after signing formal agreements.
“We planted saplings in schools, hospitals, and institutions that signed agreements to care for them, and we maintained our activities on my social media page, which serves as an automatic log of our plantation campaigns and motivates others to join us,” he said, adding that if any plant died, his team replanted it to maintain its commitment to the mission.
“INSPIRATION”
Pakistan is ranked the fifth most vulnerable country to climate change globally, with nearly 10,000 deaths and $3.8 billion in economic losses between 1999 and 2018, according to the Global Climate Risk Index. Climate-induced rains and subsequent flooding in the 2022 monsoons submerged a third of the South Asian country, killing around 1,700 people and affecting more than 33 million — almost the entire population of Canada. The country is also beset by frequent heat waves and droughts.
To raise awareness about climate threats and solutions, Chishti has been organizing an annual tree festival in Pakpattan since 2020, where he invites experts from various regions to educate attendees on the significance of planting native trees and provide insights on kitchen-gardening techniques.
And even as Pakistan baked under heatwave conditions this May and well into June, Chishti continued his work without sponsorships, bearing the expenses of planting trees solely from his salary as a schoolteacher.
“I allocate a portion of my salary for this cause,” he explained. “My students also contribute, and friends often gift me trees, enabling me to continue my mission.”
A backbone of the effort are Chishti’s “SHajjar Dost” groups on WhatsApp through which he mobilizes and engages young people in different cities using motivational messages, never asking for funding other than contributions to plantation drives.
Mehvish Sultana, a skills training professional from Lahore, joined Chishti’s team as a volunteer after learning kitchen-gardening during one of his plantation drives.
“I joined his team as a volunteer around two years ago, and there are about 300 other members in our [online] group,” she told Arab News. “All of us are motivated by Chishti and work without any reward, simply to contribute to making Pakistan green.”
Sultana said her group had planted around 4,000 saplings in Lahore’s Kinnaird College, two graveyards, and institutions affiliated with Punjab Group of Colleges.
“He (Chishti) has many such volunteers in different SHajjar Dost WhatsApp groups, who willingly work with him,” she added.
Mazhar, the Plant 4 Pakistan coordinator, said he had visited Chishti’s nursery where he grew native plants to distribute them free of cost.
“He (Chishti) indeed is doing tremendous work and logging it on Facebook to motivate others,” he said, describing Chishti as an “inspiration” for others.