After some initial success with the Delta Blue Carbon projects, the Sindh government has initiated another carbon credit trading initiative through its forest department under a public-private partnership in the province’s riverine area.

The projects within the initiative are to be executed on 34,000 hectares (close to 84,000 acres) in the Matiari and Jamshoro districts in an area located between two banks of the Indus River.

Though the Sindh forest department owns around 0.59 million acres of riverine forests and 0.2m acres of irrigated plantation, besides 1.5m acres of mangroves and 1.13m acres of rangelands, a considerable acreage of this land had fallen prey to all sorts of usurpation by bigwigs for monetary gains. Such wide-scale use of forestland is noticeable inside the riverine area.

Fortunately, the forest department — thanks to the intervention of the Sindh High Court — was able to get its forestland entered in the record of rights maintained by the Sindh government Board of Revenue.

Sindh launches a riverine carbon trading initiative in hope of making a profit and regaining lost biodiversity in one fell swoop

“The Sindh government aims to sell carbon credits through this riverine area reforestation initiative. We will be planting three species of trees, including acacia and prosopis [kandi], which are native to the region. This initiative will lead to around 20m tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent [tCO2e],” said Chief Conservator of Forests, Riaz Waghan. The cycle of the project is around 22 years, beginning after the cultivation of the forests over two years.

Around 55–60 per cent of the earnings from each project would be retained by sellers (the Sindh government), while 5pc would go to nationally determined contributions which are submitted by the Pakistan government to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Click to see more

Some disagreements and litigation were initially involved in the project, but officials claimed that reconciliation had taken place between parties, and the policy board of the Public Private Partnership Unit of Sindh, which works under the finance department, has given the projects its nod of approval. Physical progress on the project in the two mentioned districts would begin soon.

“This is going to help us a lot in regaining the forest areas’ lost biodiversity. We are offering our land to the parties,” explained Mr Waghan. He said endeavours would continue to see that no encroachment takes place and no agricultural activities are seen even in lands that are not part of this initiative. “After verified carbon standards by the regulators, we will be selling carbon credits through the project in the international carbon trading market,” he noted.

“We will be planting three species of trees, including acacia and prosopis [kandi], which are native to the region; this initiative will lead to around 20m tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent,” says Sindh’s chief forest conservator

According to Mr Waghan, Pakistan doesn’t have a substantial carbon footprint in global carbon emissions, but since this mechanism has been accepted by world leaders, it therefore is an opportunity to earn carbon credits by selling to those mainly responsible for global carbon emissions.

The Sindh government has planned initiatives via introducing the Sindh Sustainable Forest Management Policy 2019 (Amended 2023) after excluding all provisions in the 2019 policy that otherwise seek to promote ‘agriculture activity’ on forestlands in Sindh’s riverine area amidst long-standing debates that riverine forests should be exclusively used for forestation instead of crop cultivation.

The 2019 policy was stayed by the Sindh High Court, which held it to be in violation of the Forest Act 1927.

Federal Minister of Maritime Affairs Mohammad Junaid had claimed in July that Sindh’s Delta Blue Carbon projects 1 & 2 had generated $40m in carbon credit sales and were expected to yield billions in the coming decades.

The project stretches over 350,000 hectares — around 860,000 acres — on roughly 3,500 square kilometres of the Indus delta in the Sujawal, Thatta, and Badin districts and is expected to run until 2075 after having been started in 2015 leading to an estimated 142m tCO2e over the project’s lifetime.

According to one estimate, Sindh had sold 3m tCO2e credits for $40m. Another tranche of $20m was in the pipeline for the province, as its validation has been done. In the second project, a monitoring process for mangrove forests was underway.

It was in 2023 when the federal government allowed Sindh to earn $200-220m from carbon credits over the next two decades for its efforts to expand mangrove forests in line with Pakistan’s resolve for contribution to the global drive for carbon emission reduction.

According to Islamabad-based carbon markets consultant Minha Hanif, “Industrialisation in the developed world has immensely contributed to carbon emissions that have historically driven climate change as we know it today. While organisations all over the world have become conscious about their carbon footprint, they still fall short and cannot become entirely carbon neutral.”

These organisations then make up for the remaining emissions by buying carbon credits that offset their footprint in the environment through projects such as afforestation, reforestation and revegetation activities taking place in different developing nations, she explained.

Developing countries such as Pakistan remain ideal for such projects, where the impact of carbon projects can go above and beyond to deliver sustainable development goals and benefits, while also reducing the price of offsetting.

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, November 3rd, 2025