Expressing grave concern over the heavy and rapid deforestation in Sindh and failure of the forest department to combat deforestation, the Sindh High Court (SHC) directed the Sindh chief secretary and the secretary forest to put in place the effective measures to remedy the situation.
A two-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Maqbool Baqar was hearing a petition filed by Rana Faizul Hasan, secretary general of the United Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, who moved the court against deforestation.
The judges observed it was a matter of grave concern that the province was suffering from heavy and rapid deforestation. Unless the situation was remedied and measures were not taken on war-footing, they would face a catastrophic situation as it seemed that the forest department had also failed to perform its duty towards the forestation and management and control of the forest lands, they said.
They further remarked that whatever meager budget was allocated for the forest department for plantation was not properly utilised and much of it was misappropriated by the department and its functionaries.
The Sindh chief conservator forests told the judges that a total of 82,500 acres of forest land were leased out which would expire in December 2015 and December 2018, respectively.
He submitted that the leases were required to grow trees over 20 per cent to 80 per cent of such land. Unfortunately, 80 per cent of the leases had failed to grow any trees over the land and about 20 per cent had defaulted on paying lease money, he added.
The court directed the forest department to expedite their efforts for cancellation of leases in favour of such defaulters. The chief conservator also stated that about 1,34,560 acres of the forest land was under encroachment. The court directed that immediate effective and forceful measure be adopted for removal of such encroachments.
The court was also informed that certain forest lands were wrongly allotted by the Board of Revenue Sindh. Therefore, the court directed BOR’s senior member as well as the chief secretary to immediately look into the matter and pursue the same vigorously so that all such illegal and unauthorized allotments be cancelled immediately.
