Eviction of Forest Land Occupiers in Pakistan
12/19/99
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: HYDERABAD: Eviction of forest land occupiers
Source: The DAWN Group of Newspapers
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: December 19, 1999
HYDERABAD, Dec 18: Sindh minister for forest and wild life, Iftikhar
Soomro has directed the officials of the department to dislodge all
the landgrabbers occupying forest lands.
This should be done within the shortest possible time, he said during
a briefing given to him by the chief conservator of forests, at the
Miani Forest here on Friday.
Mr Soomro said he wanted a full report on how, why and when the forest
land was encroached upon and how and that how much time it would take
to eject the illegal occupants.
He stressed the need for accelerating the pace of plantation campaign
and directed the officials that mobile nurseries should be introduced
in the big cities. The department should set up stalls in the weekly
bazaars in Karachi to sell the plants.
The minister said that every inch of forest land should be planted
with trees so that the department could earn handsome revenue and
strengthen its financial position. He said that free supply of plants
should be discouraged and the people should be educated about tree
plantation which was vital to protect environment form pollution. He
advised the officials to involve NGOs in the tree plantation campaign.
He said that 'Macro Plant Nurseries' should be set up through out the
province for trees and mature plants. Two such nurseries have already
been established in Model Colony, Karachi, and Dhabeji, he observed.
Mr Soomro was of the view that there was enough space for 100,000
mature plants while 50,000 mature plants were available at the
Latifabad, Hyderabad Nursery.
The secretary forest, Shamsul Haq Memon, told the minister that the
department had established 287 nurseries throughout the province where
nine million plants were available. He said that an area of 2,781,852
acres was under forest cultivation which was eight percent of the
total land.