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ONE of more zealously pursued programmes of the Punjab and NWFP governments are their annual tree plantation campaigns. These are undertakings performed with fanfare and flourish over media. But results are exactly the opposite of declared aims.
While plantation of trees is reported in media and impression of great activity is conveyed through banners on thoroughfares of main roads of leading urban centres, reports of dignitaries launching drives, the forests are being denuded and lands under them are converted to different types of commercial uses.
Forests are one of the vital arteries of nations serving precious economic ends. They have a role in land’s productivity and generate jobs with their potential for providing raw materials for numerous industries. The first end features nowhere in official policies while they are treated as firewood by the poor and for furniture making and as building material.
A number of more profitable possibilities are ignored because of their professionally demanding and long-term investment nature and ground breaking technological inputs. In the current climate of political uncertainty and instant money making opportunities and propositions, concrete projects that become productive over a period of some years, rarely find sponsors.
At least ten percent of forestry is regarded as the correct proportion of total land of a country for environmental and land consolidation purposes but the percentage in Pakistan is about 2.5 and even that may be an exaggerated figure because official statistics are rarely authentic and are tabulated for effect rather than communicating facts.
Even worse is the fact that new plantation is often if not invariably more for performance for the record than genuine development of forestry. A considerable percentage of new trees are those which should be avoided because of local conditions. More attention is devoted to quickly growing plantation than what trees that meet requirements of land. Eucalyptus and Poplar trees are an example that one can see across the country practically on a daily basis.
Eucalyptus and Poplar are playing havoc with the country’s resources because they are largely being planted in areas and under soil conditions not meant for them. These trees simply gulp water, rapidly consume whatever water is available and compete with crops for the use of this precious resource. Their plantation is being promoted at a time when water, direly needed by the agriculture sector, is fast depleting and the country is facing a continuously deepening crisis of its availability.
Travelling across the country one comes across rows of these trees on both sides on major roads. Motorway between Lahore and Islamabad is one of the worst examples of this ugly and negative use of the concept of forestry development and wastage of scarce resources. Water is needed for crops and for drinking but it is squandered on trees of scant economic, land consolidation or environmental end.
Excessive plantation of Eucalyptus to promote forestry is actually ironical because the tree came to Pakistan via US AID for forest rehabilitation in brackish sub surface water regions; the plant can feed on saline water and can arrest the rise of water table. This had been successfully demonstrated in the US state of California where water table was improved by 37 feet.
The US government extended a helpful and friendly gesture to Pakistan in a period of time when global issues and interests had not marred inter-country relations and when US nurtured pride in providing lead in developmental activities to the world. Many positive acts of the US have been forgotten in the super powers pursuit of questionable global ends but there was a time when US was a different kind of world power.
The eagerness of Pakistan’s forestry officials invested the facility to prove productivity in the area of their expertise in minimum time and adopted it as the cure for arresting the decline of forestry and source material for good copy for ministerial and departmental reports. The trees have been exploited by officials as the easy way for demonstrating their efficiency.
On motorway and many canals in Punjab, Eucalyptus trees not only provide evidence of professional bankruptcy of concerned departments but also callousness of officials because if they did not realize the fall out of planting these trees a few year back when the water issue was not acute, they should have-indeed must have learnt the quantity of water they consume and should have reverted to traditional races of trees and shrubs. But there apparently is no system in forestry-not that it is done in other areas of life that ties different and contrasting ends in to composite and productive policies.
Traditionally grown trees like Sheesham and Kikar once dotted the entire rural landscape of the country or other trees that were grown by farmers through the ages to consolidate land in addition to fulfilling other known and practiced functions of trees like fodder to livestock and firewood for rural populations are becoming a rare sight.
They were slow growing trees but in time they brought economic gains too. This took about two to three decades in the case of Sheesham. The process is obviously against the spirit of modern management as practiced in Pakistan. The managers believe in overnight results, regardless of their detrimental long-term impact.
The shift to quickly growing trees represents a change in the philosophy of life too. One generation planted trees for the next generation to benefit. We seem to have abandoned the next generation altogether and live in a time frame of here and now that may be pragmatic but can be fatal for nations. This is reflective of the governmental policies as followed in the past decades but their negative aspects cannot be over emphasized, whatever the area of life.
The situation is all the more surprising and regrettable because forestry is part of the Ministry of Food Agriculture and Livestock (MINFAL) at the federal level. Officials of all the above mentioned sectors are housed under one roof. They must have among them scientists who can explain that productivity of land is intricately linked with forestry in both mountainous regions and in plains.
It is consequently surprising that despite the water crises in the country, these water drinking trees continue to be grown. Quite a percentage of trees along canals and on Motorway are two to four year old which means recent plantation. The news that they are to be treated as enemies of water does not appear to have reached the right quarters. Or they attach no importance to Pakistan’s water problems.
The shortage of water and proven limited utility of these trees, particularly against traditional trees of our region has apparently failed to persuade policy makers to change their approach and revert to foliage that has been found positive for the productivity of agriculture, consolidation of land, strengthening of embankments and the country’s other land, economic and population needs.
Irrigated areas are not the only part of the country that has seen mushroom growth of these trees; they have been inflicted on mountain areas and barani regions too where Poplars are often seen next to agriculture fields. They are pest hosting plants and cause damage to crops. But provinces presumably have a problem sorting things out because their forest and agriculture departments work independently of each other. The result is damage to ecology that gradually translates in to economic losses.
The wrong selection of trees for plantation is, however, one of the factors denuding Pakistan’s forests. The Afghanistan conflict on the eighties was a huger blow to forests in NWFP when a torrent of refugees swept in to Pakistan along with their animals. The approximately 3.5 million refugees also brought a roughly equally number of animals with them.
The refugees needed firewood and their animals required fodder. This caused massive devastation on the sector. No effort was made to repair the damage with the result that NWFP, one of the richest areas of forestry of Pakistan had vast stretches laid bare; even roots of trees were pulled out.
The sector has been under even greater stress from the infamous ‘Timber Mafia’ that has relentlessly commercialized forest wealth of the country the country. More over the practice of using bull dozers for flattening forest hill tracts for converting land for other uses and throwing the waste in to rivers has been instrumental in increasing sedimentation in reservoirs and reducing their capacity.
The sector has become a millstone around Pakistan’s economy and cries for a dynamic policy that would restore the equilibrium essential between forests and rest of the land. One hopes the government is cognizant of the situation and would come up with measures for meeting the demands of the sector.
