ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Along the winding road to Babusar Top, a favourite summer tourist spot in northern Pakistan, there was once a thick forest that shielded the slopes and cooled the air. 

Today, these hillsides are bare, stripped of trees that took a century to mature. So when torrential rains arrived in August, torrents of water roared down the unclothed slopes, sweeping away homes and roads in catastrophic flash floods.

The monsoon rains triggered the floods that submerged villages, killing more than 300 people and displacing hundreds. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Buner and Mansehra districts, whole villages were washed away in hours. Around 1.6 million people in the province were affected, and a further 356,000 people in neighbouring Gilgit-Baltistan

“Deforestation is the main reason that the cloudbursts at Babusar caused so much destruction,” said Muhammad Hanif, a community development officer at the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Forest Department. 

“What was once forest is now just barren land. Not a single tree is left,” he said.

Hanif explained to Health Policy Watch that forest cutting has accelerated since 2017, often justified by policies allowing logging on private property. Combined with rising demand for fuelwood in mountain areas, weak law enforcement, and powerful timber “mafias”, the result is a landscape more vulnerable than ever to extreme weather.

Forests lost, futures at risk

Pakistan has one of the world’s lowest levels of forest cover — only about 5.4% of its total land area. Each year, roughly 11,000 hectares are lost to fire, land conversion, and logging. 

The consequences are immediate in northern regions such as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan, where deforestation has removed the natural barriers that absorb rainfall and prevent soil erosion.

“When trees are cut, climate change becomes not just a global issue but a very local one,” Hanif said. 

“Flash floods, landslides, and even rising temperatures are all connected. But enforcement against illegal logging is nearly impossible unless the local community is part of the solution,” he said.

The lack of alternative energy sources only deepens the crisis. Many mountain households rely on wood for heating and cooking, further depleting precious forests. 

“An alternative like LPG must be given to people, otherwise the forests will continue to disappear,” said Hanif.

Crushing mountains, crushing ecosystems

Deforestation is only one part of the story. Across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan, mountains themselves are being blasted and ground into gravel to fuel Pakistan’s construction boom.

“Mountain and hill crushing devastates landscapes,” warned Aisha Khan, a climate activist and the chief executive officer of the Mountain and Glacier Protection Organization. 

“It removes the vegetation and topsoil that protect slopes, accelerating soil erosion and making floods and landslides more likely.”

Pakistan is home to over 13,000 glaciers – more than anywhere outside the polar regions. Yet unchecked stone crushing and quarrying destabilize fragile ecosystems, threatening both biodiversity and the glaciers that provide water to millions.

“There are more than 3,000 glacial lakes in Pakistan, with at least 33 classified as highly volatile,” Khan noted. “Crushing activities worsen these risks, increasing vulnerability for seven million people living downstream,” she said. 

Air pollution adds another layer of harm. Dust from crushers worsens respiratory health and may even disrupt regional climate patterns. Nationwide, air pollution contributes to an estimated 128,000 premature deaths annually.

Post-traumatic stress after the floods

Environmental devastation in Pakistan is often discussed in terms of economic loss and infrastructure damage. But the mental health toll is harder to quantify, just as devastating, and rarely addressed in national climate policies. 

“Climate change in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region is absolutely creating mental health issues,” said Dr Ahsan Naveed, a clinical psychiatrist who set up mental health camps in the region after the floods. 

“Come visit Beshonai in Buner or Neelmand in Mansehra — you’ll see the grave impact yourself.”

For survivors of last August’s floods, the scars are not just physical.

“After the floods, hundreds died, and the survivors experienced acute stress reactions,” recalled Naveed. “Within weeks, many developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).”

Naveed described children haunted by flashbacks, mothers numbed by grief, and families unable to sleep for fear of the next storm. Symptoms ranged from irritability and insomnia to emotional detachment.

For many flood survivors, every dark cloud brings fear. Repeated disasters erode community resilience, leaving people trapped in cycles of trauma. Children grow up in uncertainty, women face compounded stress as caregivers, and displaced families struggle to rebuild their lives.

After the floods, Naveed’s team offered crisis interventions, from psychological first aid to art therapy for children. 

“We even created a space called Ijtimai Duwa Hujra, where communities could gather, share their trauma, and heal together,” he explained.

At first, villagers resisted mental health treatment, but psycho-education and the involvement of local leaders broke down the stigma. 

“Now people call us for help themselves,” Naveed said. “It shows how deep the need is.”

Air pollution challenges

Air pollution has also become a critical environmental and public health issue in Pakistan, particularly in major cities like Lahore, Faisalabad, Gujranwala and Karachi. 

According to global air quality rankings, several Pakistani cities now rank among the most polluted in the world.

The rising pollution levels to a combination of factors, including emissions from heavy traffic, smoke from factories and brick kilns, agricultural residue burning and the broader impacts of climate change.

In response, the government has taken a series of national initiatives, including implementing and enforcing environmental regulations, establishing air quality monitoring stations and developing a smog management policy. 

The Punjab government has even introduced modern anti-smog guns across key urban areas of the province. Speaking at the launch event in Lahore, Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz stated that the technology has been tested internationally and is now being deployed in Lahore and other smog-affected cities. 

The anti-smog machines are designed to spray water into the air to suppress harmful airborne particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10).

Punjab’s Senior Provincial Minister, Marriyum Aurangzeb, acknowledged that “smog has now become a public health emergency.” 

She said, as part of the new measures, an AI-powered air quality monitoring and forecasting system is also being introduced. This system will provide real-time data and predictive insights on air quality, allowing for timely interventions.

Laws on paper, loopholes in practice

Pakistan is not without environmental laws. The Forest Act of 1927, the Pakistan Environmental Protection Act of 1997, and provincial mining concession rules all regulate forest management and quarrying. The National Climate Change Policy of 2021 also emphasizes conservation.

But Bina Shahid, a lawyer working for environmental justice in Pakistan, points out that these laws are poorly enforced. “Illegal logging and mountain quarrying continue unchecked due to weak institutions, corruption, and political interference,” she said. 

“Local mafias often operate with impunity because of political patronage,” said Shahid. 

She highlighted multiple governance gaps: minimal fines that fail to deter violators, lack of public participation in decision-making, and Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) that are bypassed or poorly conducted. 

“Decentralization after the 18th Amendment gave provinces responsibility, but without capacity-building,” she noted. “Many simply lack the expertise to monitor effectively.”

The result is a legal framework that looks strong on paper but is weak in practice, leaving forests and mountains defenseless against both logging mafias and stone-crushing companies.

Stripping away natural defenses

The consequences of weak enforcement are stark. Without trees, hillsides cannot absorb rainwater. Without glaciers, rivers run dry.

“Deforestation and mountain crushing directly strip away Pakistan’s natural defenses,” Shahid warned. 

She said they remove buffers that regulate ecosystems, leaving communities exposed to floods, landslides, and rising temperatures.

This ecological imbalance has cascading effects — from food insecurity and biodiversity loss to increased displacement and migration. And as each disaster compounds the next, the mental health burden on communities grows heavier.

In the northern valleys of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan, communities live with the knowledge that the next flood or landslide could come at any season. Bare hills and crushed mountains stand as silent warnings of what is lost — and what is still at risk.

Court orders and future action

Last June, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s top court ordered the provincial government, particularly its Environmental Protection Agency, to enforce environmental protection laws and take strict action against violators. The court made it clear that no activity with adverse environmental impacts could proceed without a valid approval.

Meanwhile, appearing before the parliamentary committee on climate change earlier this month, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Environment Secretary Shahid Zaman reported that the forest coverage in the province has improved, a claim verified through third-party assessments. 

He told lawmakers that monitoring of harvesting operations was ongoing, with seizures of 2.3 million cubic feet of timber and more than 360 vehicles as part of the government’s forest protection policy.

Zaman added that a comprehensive plan was in place to address environmental challenges and was showing “positive results.”

Gilgit-Baltistan officials also briefed the committee, stating that while forest land remained largely protected, extensive degradation had occurred in the 1980s due to sectarian violence and weaknesses in law and order. They urged constitutional protection for forests and sought federal technical support, particularly in digital monitoring systems.

Possible solutions

Despite the grim picture, experts agree that solutions exist. Aisha Khan advocates for strict enforcement of zoning laws, mandatory environmental impact assessments, and investment in sustainable alternatives like recycled construction materials and green building techniques.

Shahid called for harmonizing forestry and mining laws across provinces, raising penalties, and using technology like satellite monitoring to track illegal activities. She also urged greater citizen participation and independent oversight bodies to hold both government and private companies accountable.

Hanif, from the Forest Department, emphasized community involvement. “Without locals, enforcement is impossible,” he insisted. 

“We need to provide them alternatives energy for cooking, livelihoods that don’t depend on timber, and a sense of ownership in protecting forests.”

And for Naveed, mental health must become integral to climate policy. “Every disaster is not just physical — it is psychological,” he said, stressing that communities cannot be rebuilt without healing the minds of those affected by climate change.

The intertwined crises of environmental degradation and mental health demand urgent attention. As forests vanish and mountains disappear, Pakistan is not only losing its natural heritage but also the resilience of its people.

Without decisive action, the country faces a future where disasters come faster, hit harder, and leave deeper scars — both on the land and on the human spirit.

Image Credits: Rahul Basharat Rajput, HEI/State of Global Air .