April - June, 2010 - Sustainable Development Policy Institute

SDPISustainable Development Policy Institutehectares of forests are lost every year in the world.There are many side effects of deforestation such asthe release of greenhouse gas emissions, reducedbiodiversity, disrupted water cycles increase soilerosion and disrupted livelihoods.In order to enhance tree cover in the country, treeplanting campaigns, all the Government Departments,Private Organizations, Defense Organizations andNGOs are involved in planting activities. Awarenessthrough electronic and print media shouldbe created among the masses about theimportance and safety of forests. Those whoare involved in tree cutting should be givenexemplary punishments to reducedeforestation.(The Author is lecturer at PMAS-Arid AgricultureUniversity)English Translations of Urdu ClippingsIncrease in forest area is not possiblewithout amending the Forest ActDaily Jang, Rawalpindi, April 01, 2010Shehzad Maqbool Maral – MultanPakistan is located in such a region of the world whichhas diverse seasons and land. This country is rich innatural resources. Governments make plans fordevelopment of various sectors keeping the importanceof those sectors in view but desired results are notachieved as the plans are not implemented fully. Thisis not only causing loss of resources but is alsocreating more problems. The government of Pakistanhas declared 2009 the year of environment. A recordnumber of trees were planted all over the country.Tree plantation was carried out in all four seasons withthe cooperation of the provincial governments.Millions of saplings were planted. Besides the forestdepartment several government and private institutionstook part in this plantation campaign. The entirenation planted more than 10 million plants throughoutthe country. Had the plantation continued all yearround during 2009 we could have run out of room formore plantation this year. But unfortunately propercare was not taken of the saplings that were planted somost plants died.In Multan the spring 2010 plantation campaign wasinaugurated by Commissioner of Multan MohammadAli Gardezi. On this occasion many other officialsincluding the RPO, DCO, and CPO also planted largenumber of trees in Circuit House Multan. Every yearthe plantation campaign is launched in the samemanner but the Circuit House in Multan is still withoutany trees. Every year a plant is planted at the samespot where a sapling was planted last year. Theofficials inaugurating the campaign fail to recall thatthey plant a sapling at the same spot every year. Theynever ask the officials what happened to the plant thatthey had planted six months ago.According to the forestry experts every country musthave at least 25 percent of its land covered withforests. At the moment 13062.90 billion hectare ofland is covered with forests. Total area of Asia is3084.76 billion hectare. Out of this 547.79 billionhectare is covered by forests, which is 17.8 percent ofthe total land in Asia. Pakistan’s total area is 77.09billion hectares and the area covered by forests is 3.93billion hectares. That means total forest covered area inPakistan is 5.1 percent of its total area. So as perexperts’ opinion Pakistan needs to grow forests onanother 20 percent of its area.In Azad Kashmir 27 percent of its total area, inNorthern Areas 13.8 percent of its total area and inSindh province only 4.8 percent of the total area iscovered by forests. Punjab has a total area of 20.63billion hectares but the area under forests is only 0.64billion hectares which is only 3.1 percent of the totalarea. In view of these figures Pakistan urgently needsto grow more forests. The forest department providesmillions of saplings and plants to government and nongovernmentalorganizations twice a year.Trees are planted in Northern Areas in June and July,in upper Punjab in August September, in southernPunjab in October and November and from January toApril. In Sindh trees are planted from May toPakistan Forest Digest Vol. 1, No. 1, April – June, 2010