TAXILA: Adviser to the Prime Minister on Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam has said that the government is committed to increasing forest cover in the country.

He was addressing a ceremony held in connection with ‘Plant for Pakistan’ campaign at health department’s office here on Friday. He said that the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government had made elaborate plan to achieve the goal of planting 10 billion saplings over next five years. He said that in order to implement this plan the government had allocated Rs7.5 billion for the 10 Billion Tree Tsunami Programme for the current year.

“We have achieved the target of planting 150 million trees during winter season and the target for summer season will be set soon,” Mr Aslam said and added the most of the countries had forests over 25 per cent of their territories while in Pakistan the total forest cover was about five per cent of the land.

The PM’s adviser said that achieving the goal of 25 per cent forest cover was a big challenge and this was the reason that five years ago the PTI government in initiated the Billion Tree Tsunami Programme.

“We will make this country clean and green and for this purpose initially 20 cities have been selected and Attock is one of them,” he said.

Mr Aslam said that the present government had reclaimed around 60,000 kanals of land that was illegally occupied and it would restore all the dying forests of Punjab. He said that the government was making efforts to recover state land from illegal occupants and grow plants on them by following urban forestry model. He said that in this connection saplings would be planted in Pindigheab over 600 acres.

He said that the government knew the environmental challenges and its ample proof was that huge funds had been allocated for this programme despite financial constraints. He said that 400 kanals had been acquired for Naya Pakistan Housing Project in Attock and work on the project would be initiated soon.

Published in Dawn, August 3rd, 2019