ISLAMABAD: Vice-President of the Pakistan People’s Party Senator Sherry Rehman on Sunday said the devastation caused by 2025 mega monsoon was a lethal combination of global climate change and local institutional failure.

According to a statement issued here, she said that the floods had hit Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) the hardest, causing deadly landslides that had erased entire villages, left thousands homeless, and forced widespread displacement.

Rescue operations had been severely hindered due to helicopter crashes, and districts like Swat, Chitral, Dir, Kohistan, and Shangla remained in the crisis.

She emphasised that forest, which naturally reduced the impact of floods, had been systematically destroyed by illegal logging, fires, and poor land management, reducing Pakistan’s forest cover to a mere 5 percent, the lowest in South Asia.

According to local accounts, Swat had already lost 40 percent of its forests, with a dire warning that up to 70 percent would vanish if action was not taken. She noted that the much-publicised Billion Tree Tsunami campaign was crippled by corruption and flood damage, and highlighted how land mafias, weak enforcement of bans, and overnight changes to land use laws had caused unchecked deforestation and construction along rivers and green zones.

Despite receiving $188 million from the World Bank for early warning systems, Pakistan still lagged behind regional peers like Bangladesh and Nepal, with funds diverted during past emergencies. Unregulated plastic waste, illegal urbanisation, and blocked waterways had further amplified the destruction.

“Pakistan is losing 27,000 hectares of forest each year, and glacial melt, erratic rainfall, and recurring floods now directly threaten our economy and food security,” she warned. Sherry Rehman stressed that national and provincial climate plans remained largely on paper, and disaster management only reacted during crises. She called for immediate reforms including afforestation, green infrastructure, renewable energy adoption, and effective environmental regulation.

“To survive the age of climate collapse, Pakistan must restore credibility, unlock climate finance, and put policy into action - before it’s too late,” she concluded.

Published in Dawn, August 18th, 2025