ISLAMABAD, Nov 3: The Ministry of Environment has directed the National Highway Authority (NHA) to complete the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of Islamabad-Murree Expressway, and hold public hearings to understand viewpoints of all stakeholders and take stock of public grievances.

It also asked the NHA to involve the Punjab forest department in the consultations.

The directives were issued in a meeting of the Federal Forestry Board (FFB) held here on Monday. Federal Minister for Environment Hameedullah Jan Afridi presided over the meeting, which was also attended by the representatives and chief conservators of the provinces, AJK & Northern Areas.

The meeting expressed concern over the use of the forest land for other purposes and degradation of Simly Dam’s catchment areas due to the road construction and non-implementation of rehabilitation measures.

It also took serious notice of reduction in forest areas due to transfer of lands for non-forestry purposes.

The Ministry of Environment decided to take the issue to the cabinet for proper policy guidelines. The move was supported by all the provinces and member of the FFB.

The participants decided to fully activate the forest management/work plan, which will effectively cover all the forests of the country to ensure efficient monitoring and evaluation for sustainability of the forestry sector resources.

The FFB reviewed the policy on commercial harvesting and decided that scientific management of forests will be resumed after receiving inputs from all the provinces.

It expressed satisfaction at the launch of forest sector development projects to achieve Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the forestry sector.

The board decided that mass plantation of 10 million trees on one day will be a major event during the National Year of Environment 2009. In this connection a detailed strategy will be prepared by the environment ministry in consultation with the provinces.

The board discussed coordination between forest and wildlife departments, and decided that a separate wildlife department should be established in the Northern Areas and Balochistan like other provinces. Provincial secretaries will work out the mechanism to improve coordination between the two departments under their administration.

The board recommended that training and capacity-building of provincial forest departments is required on Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). It was also decided that Pakistan Forest Institute (PFI) would be transformed into a Forestry Center of Excellence by allocating sufficient resources.

The issue of Bakkarwal (Nomadic grazing) was disused in detail and board decided to focus on Bakkarwal in the National Rangeland Policy.