PESHAWAR: The Sarhad Awami Forestry Ittehad (SAFI), a body of forest owners, has appreciated the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government’s plan to launch the ‘billion tree tsunami’ and suggested joint efforts for preservation of forests in different districts of the province.

The organisation’s members, including Riaz Mohammad Khan, Amir Mohammad Kohistani and Jamshid Ali Khan, lamented that successive governments had never paid serious attention towards protection of forests, which had strengthened the timber mafia, according to a statement issued here the other day.

“No policy can succeed unless it is devised in consultations with the relevant stakeholders. It is necessary to take the forest owners on board in the formulation of the new forest policy in the province,” said the forest owners.

The SAFI representatives said that they would support the government’s policy for betterment of forests, saying that the forest royalty should be increased from 60 to 80 per cent.

Similarly, they also demanded employment opportunities for the people of the forest cover areas and provision of other facilities so that they could play effective role in forest protection.

The government, they suggested should take prompt action for plantation on the destroyed portion of forests.

Published in Dawn, March 30th, 2015

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