ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam on Tuesday said the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) once again termed Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Ten Billion Tree Tsunami Plantation vision as “global leader” initiative.

In a tweet, the SAPM shared the video clip of his virtual address at the UNEP’s ministerial dialogue on ecosystem restoration.

“#Pakistan @ImranKhanPTI vision of #10BillionTreeTsunami is once again termed by @UNEP as a global #Leader initiative at the ministerial dialogue on #Ecosystem Restoration at #UNEA yesterday,” Amin said in the tweet.

Addressing at the ministerial dialogue which he shared in his tweet, the SAPM said the country had gone totally into restoring and investing in nature.

“It has been an interesting journey that paid billions of rupees worth dividends all along,” he said.

The special assistant also extended his gratitude to the UNEP for allowing Pakistan to host World Environment Day during such an important year.

“It was an important year that kicked off the world ecosystem restoration decade that we are all living in,” he underlined.

He elaborated that Pakistan’s journey started three years back in 2014 when it started investing in planting trees in one of the province of the country.

“The province in the north of Pakistan (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) that set a target of one billion trees achieved it in 2018. After assuming power at the federal level we started a similar campaign countrywide,” the special assistant said.

He informed the participants of the dialogue the billion tree tsunami initiative was going on all over the country and it helped restore over one million hectares of degraded land all across Pakistan so far.

Published in Dawn, March 2nd, 2022