{"id":13013,"date":"2018-06-26T14:29:17","date_gmt":"2018-06-26T18:29:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=13013"},"modified":"2018-06-26T14:30:25","modified_gmt":"2018-06-26T18:30:25","slug":"billion-tree-tsunami-transforms-arid-pakistan-region-into-green-gold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=13013","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Billion Tree Tsunami\u2019 transforms arid Pakistan region into green gold"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

. . SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT . .<\/p>\n

An article from The Hindu<\/a> (Copyright THG Publishing Private Limited, reprinted as non-commercial use)<\/p>\n

Around the region of Heroshah, previously arid hills are now covered with forest as far as the horizon. In northwestern Pakistan, hundreds of millions of trees have been planted to fight deforestation.<\/p>\n

In 2015 and 2016, some 16,000 labourers planted more than 9,00,000 fast-growing eucalyptus trees at regular, geometric intervals in Heroshah \u2014 and the titanic task is just a fraction of the effort across the Province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nGreenery all around: Pervaiz Manan, head of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa forest department, who oversaw the re-vegetation of Heroshah district. \u00a0 Photo Credit:\u00a0AFP<\/center><\/p>\n

Control against erosion<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cBefore it was completely burnt land. Now they have green gold in their hands,\u201d commented forest manager Pervaiz Manan as he displayed pictures of the site previously, when only sparse blades of tall grass interrupted the monotonous landscape.<\/p>\n

The new trees will reinvigorate the area\u2019s scenic beauty, act as a control against erosion, help mitigate climate change, decrease the chances of floods and increase the chances of precipitation, says Mr. Manan, who oversaw the re-vegetation of Heroshah.<\/p>\n

Residents also see them as an economic boost \u2014 which, officials hope, will deter them from cutting the new growth down to use as firewood in a region where electricity can be sparse.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow our hills are useful, our fields became useful,\u201d says driver Ajbir Shah. \u201cIt is a huge benefit for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Further north, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa\u2019s Swat, many of the high valleys were denuded by the Pakistan Taliban during their reign from 2006 to 2009.<\/p>\n

Now they are covered in pine saplings. \u201cYou can\u2019t walk without stepping on a seedling,\u201d smiles Yusufa Khan, another forest department worker.<\/p>\n

The Heroshah and Swat plantations are part of the \u201cBillion Tree Tsunami\u201d, a provincial government programme that has seen a total of 300 million trees of 42 different species planted across the province.<\/p>\n

A further 150 million plants were given to landowners, while strict forest regeneration measures have allowed the regrowth of 730 million trees \u2014 roughly 1.2 billion new trees in total, says the programme\u2019s management.<\/p>\n

Kamran Hussain, a manager of the Pakistani branch of the World Wildlife Fund, who conducted an independent audit of the project, says their figures showed slightly less \u2014 but still above target at 1.06 billion trees.<\/p>\n

(Article continued in the right side of the page)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Question for this article:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

\n

When you cultivate plants, do you cultivate peace?<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

(Article continued from the left side of the page)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are 100% confident that the figure about the billion trees is correct,\u201d he said, highlighting the transparency of the process. \u201cEverything is online. Everyone has access to this information.\u201d<\/p>\n

The programme has been praised by the head of the Swiss-based International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a green NGO, which called it a \u201ctrue conservation success story\u201d.<\/p>\n

Initially mocked for what critics said were unrealistic objectives, it is a welcome change to the situation elsewhere in the country.<\/p>\n

Pakistani authorities say just 5.2% of the country is covered by forest, against the 12% recommended by the United Nations.<\/p>\n

Just one big tree remains in the poverty-stricken village of Garhi Bit in the southern province of Sindh, shading its small mosque.<\/p>\n

It has stood there for a century, locals say.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore, there were big trees, many kinds of them,\u201d says Dad Mohammad, a 43-year-old farmer.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut they started to dry because of the lack of water, so we cut them,\u201d he says, pointing to hundreds of metres of cultivated land where previously there stood a forest. More than 60% of the forests lining Sindh\u2019s riverbanks have disappeared in the last 60 years, mainly due to river depletion and massive logging during the 1980s, says Riaz Ahmed Wagan, of the provincial forest department. \u201cIt is a disaster,\u201d he says, adding that forestry remains the lowest priority on the agenda of the provincial governments.<\/p>\n

The \u201cBillion Tree Tsunami\u201d, which cost the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government $169 million, started in November 2014. Officials say they are still implementing maintenance safeguards such as fire protection, with the project due to be completed in June 2020.<\/p>\n

Green Pakistan Project<\/strong><\/p>\n

In early 2017, the federal government announced its own Green Pakistan Project, which aims to plant 100 million trees in five years across the country.<\/p>\n

It ranges from \u201clegislative reforms\u201d to \u201cwildlife protection\u201d, according to its leader Ibrahim Khan, who works under the authority of the Ministry for Climate Change. More than a quarter of the work was done by the end of April 2018, he says.<\/p>\n

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is ruled by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, the political party headed by former cricketer Imran Khan, which is the main challenger to the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) as the country heads into a general election in July 2018.<\/p>\n

Mr. Imran Khan has vowed to make the environment an election issue, and to plant a total of 10 billion trees across the country. \u201cEvery child in Pakistan should be aware of the environmental issue which, until now, has been a non-issue,\u201d he told AFP.<\/p>\n

But it is yet to be seen whether his ambitions will translate into votes.<\/p>\n

Pakistani environmental lawyer and activist Ahmad Rafay Allam says that in a country where the electorate is often swayed by infrastructure projects rather than the environment, he has doubts.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be a first,\u201d he told AFP.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

. . SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT . . An article from The Hindu (Copyright THG Publishing Private Limited, reprinted as non-commercial use) Around the region of Heroshah, previously arid hills are now covered with forest as far as the horizon. In northwestern Pakistan, hundreds of millions of trees have been planted to fight deforestation. In 2015 and … Continue reading \u2018Billion Tree Tsunami\u2019 transforms arid Pakistan region into green gold<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,10],"tags":[31],"class_list":["post-13013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-south-asia","category-sustainable","tag-south-asia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13013\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}