February 1, 2003	Saturday	Ziqa’ad 28, 1423

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ISLAMABAD, Jan 31: The ministry of environment has formulated a proposal entitled ‘national afforestation programme’.

The proposal was approved for submission to the cabinet at a meeting presided over by the minister of state for environment, Major Tahir Iqbal (retired).

The programme includes a package of incentives for the farmers and requires an investment of Rs600 million over a period of five years (2003-08).

The proposal is aimed at promoting social, farm and agro forestry through a national programme with the active involvement of local communities that will not only expand the poor forestry resource base, but also reduce the process of deforestation in the natural forests.

Forests in Pakistan consist of 4.28 million hectare or 4.8 per cent of its total land. The per capita forest area of 0.03 hectare is one of the lowest as compared to the average 1.0 hactare.

The minister while reviewing the proposal said a larger national initiative was needed for achieving the objectives of afforestation and watershed management. A viable strategy needed to be evolved for the proper implementation of the national programme, he added.

The minister said the district governments and the provincial forest department would be involved in the implementation of the programme and the district Nazimeen would supervise the establishment of farm nurseries.

The minister said the farmers would be awarded with national recognition grants for the next year if their nurseries were declared ‘best writs of the year for plantation campaign’.

Under the national afforestation programme, about 10,000 Kisan nurseries would be established in all the provinces besides Azad Jammu Kashmir and Northern Areas; around 750 million seedlings of indigenous species would be produced for planting on farm lands; the farmers will be provided technical guidance and training for establishment of nurseries and marketing; soft loans will be provided for establishment of small wood-based industries; competitions held among tree farmers; certified seed be supplied to nursery operators.

The federal and provincial secretaries for forest from the four provinces, Northern Areas and AJK attended the meeting.