Khizar Wali Chishti, a resident of Pakpattan has planted over 100,000 trees in eight years.

Maria Saleem

Khizar Wali Chishti, a disabled resident of Pakapttan district of Punjab has planted over 113,000 trees over past many years.

Khizar who was disabled due to polio and had to live within four walls of his house for about a decade due to his condition. In his solitude, Khizar ended up in a love affair with a neem tree in his courtyard, which fueled his love for trees.

He started his studies at the age of 10 years and never looked back. Khizar graduated with a master in geography.

In 2015, he started planting trees and setup a nursery two years later in 2017, which was Pakistan first nursery to provide free of cost saplings. This nursery is annually distributing 50,000 saplings free of cost.

TO commemorate Khizar love for trees, his friends have also grown a forest in Australia in 2021.

About three years ago, he started holding Tree Festival. In this festival he persuades people to plant trees and tries to raise awareness about the importance of trees. In addition to this, he also tries to raise awareness regarding climate change and also gives awards to those who plant trees.

Over 113,000 trees in eight years

Over these years, he has planted over 113,000 trees and now many others are also following his example. His example has inspired one of his followers to plant over 50,000 trees on his 30 acres of land.

Khizar considers trees as charity and plans to plant over 10 million trees in his life.

People like Khizar are our price and they are invaluable assets for the humanity. As majority of us are mindlessly rushing after money, people like him are trying to save our earth.

Besides, planting trees and protecting environment is not job of a single person; rather, collective duty of all the humans. All of us need to contribute our part to reverse the damage resulting from climate change.

Khizar message for us to plant more trees and take proper care of trees because trees are the beauty of earth and it is our moral and religious duty.