PESHAWAR: A consortium of environmental and development organisations has expressed fear about Khyber Pakhtunkhwa turning into an unsustainable desert if the trend of devouring of the precious agricultural lands is not stopped. 

Over a decade, the land mafia has eaten up 3,000 acres of prime agricultural lands in Peshawar district for unchecked housing projects.

A statement issued here on Friday said that the reports regarding the housing schemes mushrooming all over Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and other provinces to meet the demand of burgeoning population were alarming.

Proper legislation and implementation taking into account land zoning and clear demarcation of fertile lands followed by official ban on further development of food producing lands is imperative, it said.

The statement said that in the absence of these reforms the province would be rendered food deficient and as such a huge population malnourished.

It said that the global food prices had hiked and the demand for food was on the rise with more hungry people to feed as climate change had impacted fertility, decreasing food production.

It called upon the KP government to legislate and ban further development schemes on fertile lands before the total loss of valuable agricultural lands.

It said that a holistic remedy was needed of the decade-old militancy that had driven huge populations from their ancestral lands to the provincial metropolis and other settled districts.

The safe and early return of the displaced population of Fata to their abandoned homes is important for sustainable livelihoods of affected communities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

It was stated that Swat Qaumi Jirga had passed a resolution against the proposed construction of a cantonment in Swat and demanded of the prime minister and the military authorities to review the plan.

Published in Dawn, November 1st , 2014