PESHAWAR, Aug 28: Absence of an institutional framework has become a major constraint in introducing the public-private partnership in the country’s forestry sector. This was the general opinion expressed at a two-day consultative workshop on the public-private partnership’s role in the forestry sector in Pakistan, which started here on Monday.

The Sungi Development Foundation organised the workshop in collaboration with the federal ministry of environment.

Representatives of the forest community complained about lack of sustainability and transparency in government’s policies regarding forestry.

Highlighting the main hurdles in the introduction of the Public Private Partnership in the forest sector, Alamgir Khan Gandapur, a senior official of the NWFP Forest Department, said that despite the massive potential there was no institutional arrangements for running joint partnership in this major sector.

He said that the public and private sectors should frame a joint strategy to introduce the concept of the Public Private Partnership in the forest sector.

He said that in the past some projects were initiated to develop a partnership but the desired goals and objectives were not achieved.

Mr Gandapur said that the country’s forest sector had a major potential for the PPP and there should be a body to identify these potentials.

He said that the Public Private Partnership should focus on non-timber products, including production of medicinal plants, industrial tree species and endangered species.

The chief conservator, forest, Dr Iqbal Sayal, said that the corporate sector was not feasible in the NWFP context because the province had very limited forest resources.

He, however, supported the idea of introduction of multinational sector, adding that the corporate sector was successful in India.

He said that the provincial government would reform the role of joint forest management committees, which presently had confined its role to forest harvesting.

He said that the private sector would get representation in the Federal Forestry Board, while the forest department had included a programme in the current annual development programme to purchase saplings from private nurseries.

Dr Shaheen Rafi, representative of the Sustainable Development Institute, Islamabad, said that the government must realise the potential of the private sector and remove flaws from the existing forest laws.

He said that Public Private Partnerships were successful in other sectors, such as health, education and transport, but it had not explored the forest sector so far.