PESHAWAR, June 10: Criticising the Forest Ordinance, 2002, a body representing people of remote forest areas of the NWFP has urged the provincial government to place the ordinance before the provincial assembly because the law had been introduced without taking stakeholders into confidence.

The Sarhad Awami Forestry Ittehad said that presently there was centralisation of powers and forestry sector reforms, on which millions of rupees had been spent over a decade, had gone down the drain.

Speaking at a recent press conference at the Peshawar Press Club, organisation’s president Riaz Mohammad Khan said the Forest Ordinance had been promulgated by then governor Iftikhar Hussain Shah on June 10, 2002, which replaced the Forest Act, 1927.

“Since 2002, we have been struggling for bringing drastic amendments to the ordinance,” he said. But instead of improving the colonial era law, he added, the government gave further powers to the forest department, which was responsible for the decay of forests.

Organisation’s general secretary Jamshed Khan, information secretary Amir Mohammad, Sungi Foundation representative Riaz Ahmad and Gul Nawaz from Kalam were also present at the press conference.