ISLAMABAD – Over the last 3 decades, rapid deforestation has taken its toll with 15 million hectares of forests being lost annually as government has to date failed to reach a consensus on how to assess the damage caused by the recent floods.
Environmentalists and officials from the environment ministry discussed the issue of forest decline and its management here at length on Monday at a seminar titled “Legal and Institutional Reforms in Forest Laws for accepting Forest Carbon as Commodity” that was organized by Sustainable Development Policy Initiatives, a think tank working on environmental issues.
Iqbal Swati, former chief conservator forests, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa said that the highest current estimate of the world’s remaining forested areas is about 3.6 billion hectares from an originally forested area of more than 6.0 billion hectares. He stressed that forest decline threatens the genetic diversity of the world’s plants and animals and the World Conservation Union recently calculated that about 12.5 percent of the world’s 270,000 species of plants, and about 75 percent of the world’s mammals are threatened by forest decline.
He elaborated on the existing laws of Pakistan and suggested amendments with regard to decentralization of forest management and induction of specialists, supportive units at different levels of administration. He further suggested going for a multi-stakeholder partnership and the need of a capacity building program, stressing empowerment and accountability for the people.
Dr Abid Qayyum Sulehri, head of SDPI stressed on the needs of a comprehensive definition of what comes into the category of forests, and that how to balance livelihood of dependent people with deforestation.
