TAXILA: Pakistan is the fifth most vulnerable country to climate change as forest cover in the country is only 5pc when it should be 25pc.

This was stated by Deputy Commissioner Ali Anan Qamar while presiding over a review meeting of the summer plantation drive in Attock on Monday.

Around 2.6 million saplings will be planted in different areas of the district, especially along both sides of Ghazi Barotha water channel during the campaign.The deputy commissioner referred to a World Bank report on climate change, saying if action was not taken, six districts - Hyderabad, Sukkur, Mirpurkhas, Lahore, Faisalabad and Multan - would be under threat of becoming uninhabitable by 2050.

He said the world was facing environmental problems including global warming, depletion of the ozone layer and pollution and the solution to these problems was in planting more trees.

The district administration has made elaborate plans for making the under-billion tree tsunami project a success, Mr Qamar said, adding during the drive 1.2 saplings would be planted in government forests, 65,000 saplings in defence areas, 40,000 saplings in government institutions and 1.3 million saplings on private land. He said the district administration had taken a number of steps to ensure that the project was a success and that each department had been given specific targets in this connection. A monitoring and evaluation system has also been set up, he added.

Donor agencies are also playing their role in the campaign and have planted trees according to the targets they were given.

On this occasion, he emphasised upon the civil society, district and tehsil administrations, forest division, and residents to work collectively to make this marketing campaign profitable.

Additional deputy commissioners of general administration, revenue, planning, all executive district officers, assistant commissioners and officials from the forest department also attended the event.

Published in Dawn, March 2nd, 2021