ANOTHER spring and monsoon tree plantation drive has kicked off in a number of cities in continuation of the federal government’s flagship 10 Billion Tree Tsunami project. Since its launch in September 2018, the project has made some progress and won international recognition. The World Economic Forum launched its One Trillion Trees initiative in January 2020 modelled after the Pakistani project. There is no doubt that progress on the plantation drive has been on track. The federal climate change ministry hopes to have planted at least 541m trees by the close of this year and 3.9bn trees by the end of 2023. With one of the highest deforestation rates — between 0.2pc and 0.5pc — the country is bound to benefit from the plantation drive in the long run. The project might also prove to be decisive in improving the country’s forest cover that currently stands at just below 6pc, as opposed to the internationally recommended 25pc. However, despite the success of the campaign so far, there are big questions that remain unanswered. For instance, what has the PTI government done to check the activities of the timber mafia that has shown few signs of stopping its destructive activities? In 2014, the PTI-led government in KP, in fact, removed the decades-old ban on forest cutting. Ironically, the same government, after the ‘successful’ execution of the Billion Tree Tsunami project — the predecessor of the ongoing project — had also claimed to raise the national forest cover.

On the other hand, NAB in 2020 had launched multiple investigations into the provincial-level 10 Billion Tree Tsunami project on grounds of alleged abuse of authority, misuse of funds and problematic survival of the planted saplings. It takes several years for a sapling to become a tree and they must be protected. Unless these problems are addressed by the authorities, the success of the plantation drive will remain limited even if the government exceeds its target of planting tens of billions of saplings across the country.

Published in Dawn, February 25th, 2022