PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Chief Minister (CM) Pervez Khattak has said that when the KP government announced the ‘Billion Tree Tsunami’ tree planting project in the province, his opponents made fun of it and ridiculed their commitment but today not only the target has been achieved ahead of the deadline, but also at a lesser cost.
Addressing an event to celebrate exceeding of the ‘Bonn Challenge’ on Tuesday, he said that the achievement was made possible by the leadership, commitment and guidance of the PTI Chairman Imran Khan, and the tenacious efforts of all those involved in the process.
He said that afforestation had always been given the lowest priority in the past. When their task force was assigned the job, it was found that only three million saplings a year could be produced in the province, and with all their efforts just twenty to twenty-and- a-half million saplings could be produced in the first year.
However when the communities were involved, by motivating them, to plant saplings in their homes and small open places, it was a big breakthrough, he said. The poor communities were advanced small loans and by the second year, the plantation crossed 300 million saplings, he added.
He pointed out that the jobs creation output of the project is a new and unique window of opportunities for the whole world, and should be internationally acclaimed.
He said that before his government, the budget for afforestation and environment conservation was limited to just 300 million. His government increased the budget manifold and now it exceeded that of the old provincial budget and federal government’s budget combined.
He said that though a total of Rs 22 billion had been allocated to the programme, it has been achieved with just a cost of Rs 14 billion.
It is commendable that KP is the first, among over 50 countries, to have met the ‘Bonn Challenge’. It has been appreciated by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) too, which had audited it from various angles.
The CM said that “on one hand transparency had been ensured in the execution of this programme while on the other, the powerful timber mafia has also been confronted head on”. He added that a total ban on the so called “wind fall” timber cutting was imposed in KP.
He also said that though the deadline to meet the challenge was 2020, it has been achieved in 2017. He promised that all those, who contributed exceptionally for the achievement, would be properly rewarded.
The rate of survival as confirmed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and WWF is also 85 per cent, and it would create over 70 thousand jobs for the local communities.
The ceremony was also addressed by the PTI chairman, Pakistan IUCN Chief Mahmood Akhtar Cheema and KP Forests Secretary Nazar Hussain Shah. A message of the IUCN Global Chief, appreciating these successes was also played on the occasion.
