PESHAWAR, July 21: The NWFP government is considering the introduction of forestry and its allied disciplines as an optional subject in school, colleges and universities in order to get the people interested and involved in conserving forests, according to official sources.

The NWFP government’s forestry Vision 2025, said the sources, envisaged the inclusion of forestry, ecological and environmental issues in school curricula, in addition to the introduction of forestry as a subject in agricultural colleges and universities.

According to official documents available with Dawn, if appropriate measures were not taken and the deforestation is allowed to continue the forest cover in the upper parts of the NWFP would evaporate by the year 2025.

According to the draft NWFP forestry Vision 2025, “the imbalance between the demand and supply of firewood and timber has grown over the years because of the increase in demand and decrease in the supply base.”

The under-preparation 25-year plan to conserve forestry is aiming at increasing the area under forest from the officially claimed 17 per cent - of the total mass the NWFP is formed of - to 25 per cent by 2025 by conserving the existing natural forests and bring another two million acres under forest.

The draft policy aims at achieving this seemingly gigantic goal through social forestry approaches under the principle of “Village Land Use Planning (VLUP)”.

In this respect, the concept paper of the plan underlines bringing under the forest cover all the 5,000 villages in the NWFP. “Some 500 villages will be covered in the current phase of the Forestry Sector Project (FSP),” say the official documents.

The draft policy also suggests an alternate source of energy for the people living in forest areas to reduce the use of wood as fuel. Energy-efficient cooking stoves, energy-efficient houses, would also be considered.