ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan is aiming to fight climate change and pollution by planting trees on government land clawed back from politically connected landlords who have illegally profited from it for years.

Last month, Mr Khan inaugurated the first nature reserve and wildlife park on such reclaimed land at Balloki Headworks on the River Ravi in Nankana Sahib district, about an hour’s drive from Lahore.

On Feb 9, he planted the first of 652,500 saplings, mainly local species, to be put in by April on 1,500 acres (607 hectares) which had previously been turned into farm fields.

The prime minister has pledged that 10 billion trees will be planted across the country over the next five years. He hopes to scale up the success of the “Billion Tree Tsunami” in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where his party, which runs the province, has been protecting existing forests and planting new trees since 2013.

His climate change adviser, Malik Amin Aslam, said the Khyber Pakhtun­khwa push had won out against the timber mafia groups responsible for illegal logging in an area with abundant natural forests, which suck planet-warming carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it.

“Now we want to succeed with the 10 Billion Tree Tsu­nami by taking on the land mafia in Punjab which does not have many surviving forests,” Mr Aslam added.

In the Balloki Nature Reserve, which will soon have legal protection, a forest will be planted on 1,500 acres and a wildlife sanctuary with hog deer and partridge established on about 1,000 acres.

The British built the head­works there in 1906 to provide irrigation water to farmland in nearby districts.

But in the last 20 years, the state-owned land was grabbed by powerful locals, including National Assemb­ly members from all major political parties, Mr Aslam said.

Water volumes in the River Ravi has shrunk over the years, due to increasing demand for irrigation from a growing population.

Since the early 2000s, landlords and politicians began turning areas previously set aside for river flooding into fields, while the Irrigation Department turned a blind eye, Mr Aslam said.

Almost 2,500 acres were planted with crops such as rice and sugarcane, bringing in an estimated income of almost Rs100 million per year to those who had parcelled up the land.

The illegal takeover of government-owned floodplains was quite widespread in Punjab and Sindh, said Hammad Naqi Khan, CEO of WWF-Pakistan.

In many cases there are influential politicians beh­ind it who take over the land and give it to tenants to farm, he said.

Published in Dawn, March 22nd, 2019