- Minister says cutting of trees at large scale and increasing population have negative effect on climate
ISLAMABAD: Minister for Climate Change Mushahidullah Khan has urged the masses to actively participate in ongoing countrywide spring tree plantation drive.
“Through maximum trees plantation, the country can be safeguarded from the negative effects of climate change,” he said while talking to the media here on Sunday. He also highlighted that Pakistan has only 5 per cent area under forest and the government was committed to bringing the forest cover to the area as per international standard. He said cutting of trees at large scale and increasing population were affecting the climate.
Sharing the present government’s initiatives to protect the natural forests, he said under Green Pakistan Programme the government had planted around 15 million trees while 85 million more trees would be planted till 2021.
The minister said, under “Ghar Ghar Aik Shajar” awareness campaign, free trees would be distributed door-to-door in Islamabad. Almost 100 students, he said, from different universities of Islamabad would participate in the programme.
“We have formulated New Forest Policy while first ever Wildlife Policy of the country is in final phase”, he said. Sharing the last five years progress of the ministry, he said under spring tree plantation drive about 407.3 million trees had been planted while during Monsoon tree plantation drive 216.7 million trees had been planted.
He said that the Ministry of Climate Change, Capital Development Authority (CDA) and Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad were jointly working on capacity building of employees.
