Predators are on the prowl in Isloo, threatening the environment. At the peak of Musharraf power, say 2004, they had acquired substantial influence and, collaborating with the CDA, went about cutting trees and destroying the environment of this green city. In the name of development and modernisation, hundreds of thousand of trees were cut to create space for broad avenues, whose utility to the common man was, and remains, zero. In fact, in the absence of a decent public transport system and provision for pedestrian pathways, the average citizen, women and children included, have been exposed to serious danger as they need to traverse these broad avenues against fast, vehicular traffic. Islamabad forest has been cut principally around Margalla Avenue, both sides of Islamabad Highway, Kashmir Highway and Sahkarparian Hills. The environmental degradation, atmospheric and noise pollution already caused will take fifty or more years to correct. Even that is a doubtful prospect as the awareness of the damage is apparently missing in the policy makers. The argument of new plantation holds no water as the depletion of the environment is drastic and immediate while new plants take many years to take root and grow. A few years ago, the civil society raised some voice against the massive destruction but soon it petered out and the builders and developers came back with a vengeance. The nefarious nexus between the establishment and some notorious property developers could not be broken. Money prevailed and the pro-environment lobby lost. So much so, that the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Environmental Protection Council and other concerned agencies were ignored as the contractors rode rough shod. The legal requirement of a number of no objection certificates mandatory for new projects were ignored since those whose job it was to implement the law were either in cahoots or subdued one way or the other. The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), mandatory for new projects, has mostly been circumvented. The question is why do people not protest more vigorously against such threats to the environment? Such a question cannot be answered in a country where bad governance is chronic, people are mostly illiterate and poor and the social elite, the privileged classes, are too self-seeking and predatory towards the resources of the state to allow the growth of a reasonable understanding of real issues. A society that takes ages to recognise major issues concerning justice and the constitution cannot, in all fairness, be expected to make a meaningful protest against environmental desecration's. The result is that society is held to ransom by different mafias and their lobbies in the government. The public protest, such as it is, begins to suffer from fatigue before it starts. The city development mafia has understood this. Given the lack of political interest and civil society activism sans momentum, they know they have nothing to fear so long as there is money to be made and the wheels of corruption remain greased. Over the years these predators have become bold. The Margalla Hills were declared a National Park in 1980 but they have continued to defile them with environmentally hazardous activities. In 1984 a cement factory was established in the heart of the green area, upsetting the ecological balance of Isloo's flora and fauna destroying the rock and soil of the hills and creating a serious health hazard for the inhabitants of the area. Stone crushers are flourishing and quarrying for lime and stone goes on unabated in some of the most beautiful valleys of the Margalla Hills. Even the Rawal Lake, a part of the National Park and main source of drinking water for the town of Rawalpindi, has not been spared. Human habitation in the catchments area and restaurants and shops coming up around it are polluting the lake. The F-9 Park too has come under attack. Thousands of trees and rare flora are being replaced by unessential concrete structures like restaurants, shops and club houses and bowling alleys for a handful of the elite. And now we have a tunnel project designed to connect Haripur with Islamabad through the Margalla Hills, two towns which already have reasonably good road links. The devastation this project will cause to the Margalla Hills, a unique natural feature of Islamabad, destroying its rare trees and plants and wild life is incalculable. In a country where poverty is rampant and cash strapped government is cutting the size of education and health budgets, the tunnel project, likely to cost billions of dollars, is being pushed at great speed. Apparently, the Planning Commission, the ECNEC, and other related project examination institutions are being bypassed to push it through. It is a bonanza for a handful of property developers and their cowboy friends in high places, the predators of Isloo. And all this is happening right under the nose of President Zardari, a former chairman of the Pakistan Environmental Protection Council. Can he step in and stop it? The writer is a former ambassador at large