PESHAWAR, April 10: The NWFP Forest Department will shortly launch “Vision 2025” — a forest conservation plan — to preserve and enhance the existing forest resources in the province and the adjacent Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata).

Under the proposed plan, the forest-covered areas of the province will be increased from 17 per cent to 25 per cent by the year 2025 to meet the country’s needs. Fata has been declared the main target area in the plan where massive afforestation will be carried out.

“We have almost finalised the draft to be made public within a month or so,” provincial minister for environment Abbas Khan told Dawn here at a function organised by the Sarhad Conservation Network (SCN) on Wednesday.

He said the government was very much concerned about the fast depletion of the forest resources in the province. He maintained that a German agency released a report according to which the province’s existing forests would be vanished by the end of 2025.

The total forest-covered area in the NWFP is 1,194,375 hectares as against the national average of 5.4 per cent. The forests disappeared as a result of illegal cutting of trees for timber and fuel purposes.

Chief Conservator Forests, Ghazi Marjan Khan, when contacted, said that under Vision 2025 over two million acres in the province and the adjacent tribal areas would be brought under forests and some one billion saplings would be planted. “The government plans to raise forest-covered area by 25 per cent in the province,” he maintained.

Roughly, the chief conservator said, the project would cost Rs10 billion and after completing the final draft the government would approach foreign donor agencies to finance the plan. He said the influx of Afghan refugees had drastically affected forest reserves in tribal areas that was why these areas would get a major share of the scheme.

SCN CAMPAIGN: The Sarhad Conservation Strategy (SCN), an NGO launched public awareness campaign on conservation of plant bio-diversity in the provincial capital. During the campaign, plaque will be fixed on old and young trees in the metropolis to create awareness among the people about plant conservation.