Terrorism and massive floods during last and the previous year’s summer have badly affected forests throughout Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the Federally Administrative Tribal Areas (FATA) and now the provincial government is now making attempts for compensating for the losses.
“The government has adopted a comprehensive strategy for the promotion of forestry, but without the support of common man, all such attempts are nothing but futile exercises,” said Wajid Ali Khan, forest minister for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, during a debate on Friday.
He said the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government was approaching students at the school level for creating awareness amongst the common people. Elaborating his point of view, he said officials of the Forest Department, with collaboration of their counterparts from the education sector, were establishing “forest, environment and wild life clubs” at the school level.
“The purpose of such clubs is to create awareness amongst the people about the importance’s of nature, which is possible with the promotion of reforestation, preservation of environment and protection of wild life,” he said. So far, 200 clubs have been established, whereas its members were engaged in advocacy for the promotion of forest and environment, the minister said.
During the discussion, participants held Taliban responsible for the destruction of forest in Swat valley and the adjoining Buner, Shangla and Dir districts.
Beside Swat, the Taliban also played with the environment in Waziristan region. “Even in Swat, the Taliban enforced Ushar on illegal deforestation,” said Khan. He recalled that the Taliban had permitted people of the timber mafia to go for illegal deforestation in areas under their control. “In return, they got 10 percent of what they call Ushar. Whereas the Taliban sold away Dewdaar’s in Gatt Pewchaar, Sakhra, Malasm Jabba and other mountainous regions just for meeting their arms and ammunition needs,” the minister added. To a question, the forest minister said around 402,671 Safeties (Sleepers) of Forest Development Corporation and Forest Department had been destroyed during July-August 2010 flood, thus causing financial losses of Rs 95.59 million to the provincial exchequer. There was no account of Pine, Dewdaar and other precious trees uprooted by the heavy floods.
Khan said so far the government had planted around 100,000 plants in Malam Jabba, Swat and around 500,000 plants under watershed projects throughout the province. He said reforestation was going ahead without hurdles in Hazara, Chitral and other areas. Referring to the government’s move against those involved in illegal deforestation, Khan said in the last four years, 32,000 cases had been registered and thousands of safeties recovered. “Only in Haripur and Batagra, 8,000 safeties ( Sleepers) were recovered and dozens of smugglers were arrested,” the minister added.
