PESHAWAR: In a gathering marked to celebrate the success of “The Billion Tree Tsunami Project” at Convention Centre on Tuesday, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Chief Minister Pervez Khattak said that change in the province was now fully evident, even besides the grand afforestation project.
The chief minister remarked that his government had achieved all its targets in time, adding that they had achieved their set targets in education, health and other social sectors.
Khattak recalled also that the KP government had faced serious resistance at every stage but that the responsible authorities had endeavoured with full commitment to depoliticise public sector institutions and improve their efficiency.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan, PTI central secretary general Jehangir Tareen, advisor to chief minister Ishtiaq Urmar, secretary forests and others were also present at the occasion.
Speaking at the occasion, the chief minister appreciated the performance of Ishtiaq Urmar and officials of the forest department and announced that Ishtiaq Urmar would be made a cabinet member as minister of the environment department following the 2018 elections. He also announced promotions to the employees of the department and promised to plant 2 billion more trees in the next tenure after winning the elections in 2018.
The chief minister said that his government had worked to improve its performance in all sectors. He reminded the gathering that planting a billion trees had not been an easy task, since the government had to fight against the strong timber mafia, who would cut down trees and destroy the forests in the province. He added that the government continued to raise nurseries and involve the community and youth in its green growth initiatives.
Pervez Khattak also listed the steps the KP government had taken to revamp the provincial institutions, which had been in disarray when he took charge. He said that corruption had been rampant earlier. However, his government had worked hard to ensure efficient returns and improve the education, health and other sectors. He said that police had been depoliticised, adding that the whole country could aspire to adopt governance policies like KP’s.
Talking about the impending environment threats to the country, the chief minister said that the conservation of environment was his government’s priority as Pakistan was ranked the seventh most vulnerable country to climate change and global warming.
He lamented that forestry had been of very low priority with the previous governments who had never allocated more than Rs300 million per annum to the task. He said that 15.532 million cubic meters of fuelwood were consumed annually in KP alone which exceeds the annual regenerative capacity of KP forests. “Consequently 78% of our forests were under-stocked and 74% had no regeneration when we took over,” he said.
The KP government’s three-pronged approach to achieving its objective was reiterated by the chief minister. The approach includes the conservation and rehabilitation of existing degraded Forests, the development of new forests over 2% additional area to bridge the gap between demand and supply, and the retrieval of encroached state land and establishment of forests over it.
Comparing the billion tree tsunami project with Punjab government’s “Green Pakistan Program”, he said that there was no comparison as the latter aimed to plant only 100 million plants over the period of five years.
The chief minister also recalled and praised the sacrifices of the forest department employees who had laid down their lives fighting with the timber mafia, and appreciated the efforts of Forestry, Environment and Wildlife Department for making the billion trees project a success story.