ISLAMABAD: The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations on Tuesday launched a project in support of the government’s Plant for Pakistan campaign to restore, improve and sustainably manage chilgoza pine forests in Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan.

The FAO, in collaboration with the Ministry of Climate Change, provincial forest departments and other stakeholders will contribute to improving the environment, enhancing the resilience of people and improving livelihoods in Pakistan over the next four years through its project called Reversing Deforestation and Forest Degradation in High Conservation Value Chilgoza Pine in Pakistan.

The chilgoza ecosystem in Pakistan has been facing negative impacts of climate change for a long time. Chilgoza pine is an important member of the unique ecosystem of the dry temperate ecological zone and has the potential to contribute billions of rupees to Pakistan’s economy by providing non-timber forest products besides providing fuel wood and regulating water.

As part of the project’s launching, a workshop was organised by the FAO in Islamabad, which was attended by officials of the climate change ministry, Inspector-General of Forests Syed Mehmood Nasir, representatives of federal and provincial governments, forest departments and local and international development partners.

Speaking on the occasion, FAO Representative in Pakistan Mina Dowlatchahi, said that forest degradation had implications for environment vulnerability, biodiversity conservation and livelihoods.

The project, she said, would be run in cooperation with local communities, government departments and institutions to restore degraded chilgoza forests. It would also help promote value chain development for generating sustainable income for local communities from chilgoza pine products, she said.

Ms Dowlatchahi planted a sheeshum (Dalbergia Sisso) sapling on the occasion in an effort to join and support the government’s Plant for Pakistan campaign.

Published in Dawn, September 5th, 2018