PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa forest department has planned to designate natural forests in the merged tribal districts, formerly known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, as Guzara Forests to be owned by the respective communities, while their management role will lie with the department.

Forests in other districts of the province, especially Hazara and Malakand, have been divided into three categories including reserved forests that belong to the government, and protected forests, where the local communities have the maximum rights, and Guzara Forests, which are 100 per cent owned by the communities.

Unlike other districts of the province, forests in merged tribal districts will be designated as Guzara Forests.

An official told Dawn on Tuesday that the department had recommended to the government to put all forests in tribal districts in the category of Guzara Forests.

He said PC-I of the project had been put up to the Provincial Development Working Party for approval.

Management role will lie with the forest department

According to the proposed plan, the forest department will carry out ecological classification and official designation of forests in the defunct Fata.

“The forest department wants joint forest management for tribal districts to ensure the protection of forests with the direct involvement of the local communities and rights of local tribes,” he said.

He said the local parliamentarians, community leaders and owners would be taken on board before putting forests in Guzara category.

Sources said the project would be financed from multibillion rupees Accelerated Implementation Programme, a joint intervention of the federal and provincial governments for the social uplift of tribal districts in next 10 years.

They said experts would first carry out ecological classification for categorisation of the existing forests.

The sources said the department would finalise the official designation of forests to determine ownership and rights of local tribes.

The natural forests in merged districts belong to local tribes. The rights, conservation, protection and harvesting of forests lie with the respective tribes and the government does not have any role so far.

The office of the conservator for the former Fata was given very limited role in tribal districts to carry out block plantation on private lands and along main roads.

A senior conservator said Kurram tribal district was the only area in former Fata that had documented history file of forests. He said British rulers had divided forests in Kurram valley into 42 compartments which were properly documented.

Former Fata comprises 2,700,000 hectares.

Officials said the forest covered area in tribal districts was three to four per cent although the department concerned did not have accurate data.

KP government has planned to carry out massive tree plantation in merged districts under the five-year Billion Tree Afforestation Programme.

Officially, the forest-covered area in merged districts is around 20 per cent.

According to the plan, merged districts will get around Rs9.07 billion for the five years plantation drive.

Officials said the forest department would focus on merged districts and 60 per cent share of the budget under BTAP would be spent in tribal districts.

An official said 1,800,000 hectares of total 2,700,000 hectare area of the merged districts comprised mountainous, range, shamilat (community) and range lands and that the terrain of merged districts were suitable for massive plantation, especially Bajaur, Kurram and South Waziristan and parts of Orakzai and Khyber.

He said the existing forests had been confined to high-altitude areas.

Published in Dawn, December 4th, 2019