© The DAWN Group of Newspapers, 2001
October 21, 2001
By I.H.Raashed

LAHORE, Oct 21: A new national forest policy is in the offing for the conservation and development of forests and biodiversity of Pakistan.

The need for framing a new forest policy has been felt following an alarming rate of depletion of natural resources in the country, particularly during the past three decades due to enormous pressure from the socio-economic, political and institutional forces. According to the draft of the policy, which is under active consideration of the government before its approval by the federal cabinet, the document will provide a guiding framework for sustainable forest management practices as well as wider participation of various government and non-government institutions and other stakeholders.

The draft policy seeks to initiate a process of eliminating the fundamental causes of the depletion of renewable natural resources through participation of all the agencies concerned for the sustainable development of forests, grazing lands and biodiversity of the country.

The draft policy, according to official sources, aims at reducing the impact of socio-economic pressures, reducing political interference in the forestry and other environmental departments, renovating and invigorating the institutions responsible for management of renewable natural resources and preparing and implementing policies of preserving and developing ecosystems. The draft policy was recently discussed at a consultative workshop organised by the Ministry of Environment, Local Government, Rural Development at Islamabad in collaboration with the World Conservation Union (IUCN).

Pakistan has a meagre forest cover of 4.22 million hectares i.e. 4.8 per cent of the total 88 million hectares of Pakistan. About 80 per cent of the forest area is dispersed in the northern watersheds of the country including Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Northern Areas. These forests are burdened with multiplying rights of timber, firewood and grazing etc. Forests and trees in watersheds play an important role in conserving and the soil and water to enhance the life span of Tarbela and Mangla dams which are the main source of meeting the national requirements of irrigation water and hydropower.

With limited forest cover and increasing requirements of ecological protection of the highland watershed areas and local forest communities and commercial timber needs, the government felt that there was an urgent need for an elaborate and effective monitoring and evaluation system along with a sound planning and implementation mechanism.

The government has already prepared a 25-year plan for the development of the forestry sector which is called Forestry Sector Master Plan (FSMP). The plan suggested a number of approaches, policies, strategies and programmes to meet wood demand, improve environments and promote social and economic well-being of rural communities. It also identified the social, economic and physical causes of forest depletion in the country and proposed five areas of development programmes -- soil conservation and watershed management, forest, management, wood production and industrial development, ecosystem and biodiversity and strengthening of federal and provincial institutions.

The plan stipulates a huge investment of Rs48 billion in the next 25 years which would help increase the forestry resources from the existing five per cent to 10 per cent. Based on the recommendations of the plan, the World Bank prepared an investment programme of $25 million for forestry development in the Punjab and the Asian Development Bank prepared an investment programme of $42 million for the forest development in the NWFP with $1.5 million as federal component for monitoring and updating the master plan.

The federal government has also reviewed forest management and set the following guidelines to ensure sustainable forest management, rapid afforestation and enforcement of forest laws:

(i) Long-term forest working plans should be prepared in consultation with the local committees and in accordance with the guidelines issued by the federal government from time to time. The federal government in consultation with the provincial forest departments will review the implementation of the working plans periodically. The federal forestry board will be activated for this purpose as well as to monitor changes in forest cover and formulate and review forest policy, institutional arrangements. Error: Unable to read footer file.