PESHAWAR: More than 20 million cubic feet (cft) of timber worth Rs40 billion is decaying in Hazara and Malakand forest regions as the climate of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa changes and forest department has failed to execute scientific management plan in forests, according to officials.

Officials in climate change and forest department told Dawn that estimated 20 million cft timber was lying in the forests of the province for the last many years.

They said that decomposition of such a large quantity of timber was a huge loss to locals and the government as well. They added that 80 per cent of the income generated from selling such timber went into the pockets of locals while 20 per cent was submitted in the provincial kitty.

Officials said that scientific management of forests was banned in 1993 as two years were required to enhance the capacity of the forest department personnel as well as organisational structure and mechanised harvesting.

Forest dept fails to enforce scientific management plan

However, they said, the ban couldn’t be lifted for the next 22 years owing to indifference of the government towards harvesting the “dead, dying, diseased or wind-felled” trees from forests in the province.

Finally, in 2014 the ban imposed in 1993 was lifted and working plans for each forest were approved by the climate change and forest department on scientific lines. KP’s annual forest-related losses since 1993 was Rs17 billion.

Under the working plans for each forest, the officials of climate change and forest department marked dead, dying, diseased or wind-felled and matured trees for harvest. However, the department failed to execute the working plan owing to pressure from organisations working against deforestation in the country and no support from the provincial government, said officials.

It is pertinent to mention here that in May 2023, the climate change and forest department again tried to start scientific management of forests with priority to first clear the forest from dead, dying, diseased or wind-felled trees. But the department again failed to execute the working plans owing to ‘pressure’ of social media.

Officials said that the department didn’t regularly remove such trees fearing that social media would promote wrong impression about the exercise. They said some social media users even showed the “legitimate felling of trees as the handiwork of timber mafia”.

The secretary of climate change and forest department, Nazar Hussain Shah, when contacted, said that skills of forest employees regarding scientific management were affected owing to ban on forest harvesting since 1992.

He said that harvest of forests on scientific lines was going on all over the world which was good for the health of forests. Majority of the developed countries including Germany and Canada were earning billions of dollars annually by exporting timber, he said.

Mr Shah said that Austria, which had forest regions equal to that of KP, was exporting timber worth $7 billion. He said KP had the potential to export timber worth $10 billion in the next 10 years. “If the timber is not exported then it will get rotten which has been happening for the last 22 years since the ban imposed on harvest,” he added.

An official told Dawn that only in some areas of Malakand forest region, about 1.226 million cft timber worth more than Rs2 billion was lying in forests, which just needed transportation.

“Another 2.5 million cft timber is marked by forest officials in Malakand region-III which can generate Rs5 billion at minimum price,” he said. He added that marking of trees was carried out several years ago.

Besides marked timber in the region, the official said, additional millions cft timber was matured and ready for harvest but they could not harvest it as the provincial government was not supporting them due to pressure of organisation working against deforestation.

He said scientific management of forest was restored in 2014 but it was only limited to paper. Practically there was no scientific management, he added.

The official said scientific forest management was necessary for sustainable production of timber, firewood and other minor forest production while it was also important for better health and hygiene of forests to reduce fire hazards and flood disasters.

“Harvesting of such timber will not only improve the health and hygiene of forests but will also enhance their production,” said the official. He added the province produced the best quality timber in the world including deodar, kail, fir/spruce and chir, which all were softwood timber of pine species.

He said KP produced quality timber of hardwood species, including shisham, walnut, oak and ash. He added that by not implementing the scientific forest management project since 1993, 11.5 million cubic feet of timber was being lost in the forest every year.

Published in Dawn, January 8th, 2024