LAHORE: South Punjab Forest Company (SPFC) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Tahir Rasheed on Sunday said that the company, with the help of private sector, would plant 130 million trees over an area of 99,077 acres of forest land in five districts of South Punjab.
Tahir Rasheed said that commercial forestry through a proper management system could play a key role in controlling environmental pollution in addition to reorganising the wood industry and saving foreign exchange.
He said that with the completion of the project, around Rs 240 billion would be added to the economy and the government would earn Rs 20 billion. The project would also help reduce the logging pressure on natural forests of the country, he added.
He further said that the work on tree plantation would be started by April.
Tahir Rasheed said that the Punjab government had taken a landmark step to reduce deforestation in South Punjab and to provide sustainable wood to the wood industry.
He said that according to Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s vision, SPFC had been strengthened and was formulating comprehensive recommendations for tree plantation across the province.
He said that Dera Ghazi Khan, Rajanpur, Muzaffargarh, Bahawalpur and Rahim Yar Khan would be brought under the forest cover through the project.
The company was mandated to seek private investment on produce sharing basis with minimum 15 percent of SPFC’s share for afforestation and range management under Public Private Partnership (PPP)’s Build Operate Transfer (BOT) mode for a period of 15 years, he said.
Tahir Rasheed, while appreciating the Green Pakistan Programme (GPP), said that it was a successful initiative which would help improve the forest cover of Pakistan, leading to wildlife conservation.
“This programme will help us mitigate the impact of climate change in Pakistan, as the country is highly vulnerable to the phenomenon,” he said.