TAXILA: The district administration has made elaborate plans for making the ‘Green Attock’ project a success and a large scale tree plantation campaign will also be launched soon, according to District Coordination Officer (DCO) Attock, Rana Abdul Hayat.

Chairing a review meeting of the ‘Green Attock’ project on Tuesday, the DCO said the world is facing environmental problems including global warming, depletion of the ozone layer and pollution and that the solution to these problems is in planting more trees.

He said district administration has taken a number of steps to ensure that the project is a success and that each department has been given specific targets in this connection. A monitoring and evaluation system has also been set up, he added.

Forest cover in Pakistan is only 5pc when we need 25pc of the country to be covered by trees, he said, adding that donor agencies are also playing their role in the campaign and have planted trees according to the targets they were given.

Addressing the meeting, District Officer Forest Malik Saqib Awan said more than 0.5 million plants will be planted across the district during the project and that all provincial and district departments have been given targets for planting trees and saplings.

The meeting was attended by Additional District Collector Ikramul Haq, all executive district officers, assistant commissioners and officials from the forest department.

Published in Dawn September 7th, 2016