May 21, 2007	Monday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 04, 1428

RAWALPINDI, May 20: The Ministry of Environment is commissioning a national task force on forestry to conduct reviews of forest policy and for better management of forest resources of the country.

Pakistan is committed to achieving the Millennium Development Goals by increasing the forest cover on state-owned and private forest and farmland to six per cent by 2015.

Reliable data for planning are essential to achieving this target, but reliable data on forest area, boundaries and land tenure are scarce.

The task force will serve as a think-tank comprising experts from provinces, non-governmental organisations, private sector, international organisations and concerned government agencies for forest policy formulation and its revision on a continuous basis with the principal objectives to suggest measures for increasing the forest coverage.

The task force, headed by the environment minister would have at least 20 to 25 members.

The commissioning of the task force is well in advance stages as the ministry has received nominations from the provinces.

The terms of references were being formulated to activate the task force before the end of June 2007, official sources told Dawn.

The policy formulation process both at the federal and the provincial level is very inappropriate and there is a lack of multi-stakeholder involvement in monitoring and evaluating policy implementation.

No mechanism for conducting policy reviews exists in the country.

Preparedness for natural disasters at the national and provincial levels does not exist.

Many environmental problems like water pollution and forest fires are trans-boundary in nature and need the collaboration of stakeholders at local, national and international levels.