PESHAWAR, Nov 19: Chilgoza (pine nut), once a favourite munching nut in winters, is fast becoming a delicacy few can afford as price of the crunchy dry fruit has shot up beyond the means of ordinary customers.

Market rate of Chilgoza ranges between Rs1,800 to Rs2,400 per kg in the provincial capital. Dry fruit sellers say that price of pine nuts was Rs1,200 per kg last year but this year it witnessed unprecedented rise.

Chilgoza is a common dry fruit in winter for the natives in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but now it has become the most expensive and rare fruit. Few years back vendors used to sell baked as well as raw Chilgoza on donkey carts and handcarts in bazaars and streets in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa ahead of and during winter season.

Retailers say that Chilgoza is in short supply from Afghanistan, Balochistan and northern areas of the country as a result its prices shot up tremendously. But forest conservators term export to China as one of the major factors of the increase in its price.

Syed Kamran Hussain, research coordinator, World Wildlife Fund (WWF), told Dawn that export to China was one of the major factors which affected supply of Chilgoza to the local market.

He said that pine nuts were used in manufacturing cosmetics in China. Another reason, he said, was bad seed production because it decreased after every five or six years, which was natural.

Chilgoza pine tree is a wild species that grows in Gilgit, Chitral and Suleiman range in Balochistan province. It is also found in Shawal Range of the South Waziristan Agency. Conservators say that Chilgoza forests have shrunk at a fast rate in the region.

WWF officials said that Chilgoza forests were found over 26,000-hectare area in Shirani District of Balochistan province covered area. They said that Chilgoza forests of Suleiman Mountains were not only ecologically unique, but had tremendous importance from socio-economic perspective of the local communities.

But the species are facing potential threat from the local communities, because these forests were exposed to illegal harvesting despite the fact that the tree had been protected under the Balochistan Forest Act. The WWF is running conservation projects in Suleiman Range to protect Chilgoza forests from depletion and create awareness among the local communities.

Kamran Hussain said that till early 1970s, the local tribal system provided a reasonably good protection to Chilgoza forests but subsequently the same system did not remain effective due to erosion in traditional social institutions.

Officials in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Forests Department said that a pilot project was launched in Upper Dir district a few years ago to convert common pine into Chilgoza pine through grafting, but the project remained unsuccessful.