Clifton Urban Forest — A Miyawaki Pocket Forest Cooling a Karachi Neighbourhood (Pakistan)

Karachi's June 2015 heatwave killed more than 1,200 people, exposing the 'urban heat island' effect of a city with minimal tree cover — the KMC parks director later put citywide green coverage at only about 1%, against a recommended minimum of 25%. After watching a TED talk on Akira Miyawaki's dense, fast-growing native afforestation method, entrepreneur Shahzad Qureshi obtained Parks Department permission (with no government funding) to plant a pilot plot in the Clifton residential area, working with Bangalore-based Miyawaki consultant Shubhendu Sharma (Afforestt).

Dawn reported the original pilot, planted in 2015-16, at 400 square metres with about 1,200 saplings; by 2018 the tallest trees exceeded 7.6 metres and the site measured 4-5 degC cooler than the unshaded surrounding colony. As the project matured, Heinrich-Boll-Stiftung's 2023 review put the Clifton Urban Forest at about 3 acres with roughly 38,000 saplings planted (many now mature), citing a 6-7 degC difference from surrounding streets, plus a small on-site vegetable garden, fish pond and sewage-water filtration for irrigation.

Qureshi's method was subsequently replicated at an estimated 26 urban-forest sites across Pakistan, 20 of them in Karachi, some deliberately sited near mosques to reuse ablution wastewater for irrigation. In October 2023 Karachi's mayor announced a 300-site Miyawaki-forest expansion plan for the city.

The evidence has real limits: cooling and area figures come from press coverage and the initiative's own reporting rather than independent peer-reviewed measurement, no rigorous carbon-sequestration estimate was found, and Dialogue Earth/thethirdpole.net commentary on Pakistan's urban-forest wave has questioned whether isolated pocket forests can meaningfully offset a citywide 1% green-cover deficit without sustained public investment and maintenance.

Read the full analysis: https://afpak.boell.org/en/2023/10/18/karachis-urban-forest-initiatives