Tree plantation is vital for conserving nutrient-rich soil through regeneration of forests across the country

Pakistan will plant 200 million saplings in 2020 monsoon. A whopping target of planting around 200 million saplings across the country has been set for the country’s largest ongoing monsoon tree plantation season 2020, said Malik Amin Aslam, Advisor to Prime Minister on Climate Change. “All-out efforts would be made not only to achieve the target, but also exceed it by a huge margin during the monsoon tree plantation season that will continue till September 30,” the premier’s advisor said while talking to media here on Sunday.

He told media that the target of 200 million saplings was approved after due consultations with the provincial forest departments, which shared their approved targets of tree plantation during the ongoing three-month monsoon tree plantation season, which continues from July to September every year.

Prime Minister Imran Khan inaugurated the country’s largest ever country-wide ‘Monsoon Tree Plantation and Protection Campaign 2020’ by planting a sapling in Kahuta on July 17, pledging to utilise all possible resources and capacities to enhance the country’s forest cover and fight environmental degradation.

Monsoon Tree Plantation Targets

While addressing the ceremony, PM Imran Khan had lauded the raging passion of the youth for their participation in the tree plantation campaign across the country, saying “youth and students are the future of Pakistan”. While sharing the details of the monsoon tree plantation targets, the prime minister’s advisor Malik Amin Aslam said that as many as 80 million trees would be planted in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province during the ongoing monsoon season followed by 60 million plants in Sindh, 37 million plants in Punjab, 14 million in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, 2.050 million plants in Gilgit-Baltistan, 0.602 million plants in Balochistan province and remaining plants will be planted by different civil society organisations including International Union of Conservation for Nature – Pakistan and World Wide Fund for Nature – Pakistan.

He said that tree plantation targets are set twice a year for spring season (February-March) and monsoon season (June-September), because good rains are received during these months, which adequately soak the soils vital to healthy growth of tree saplings. “The monsoon season [June-September) is a great opportunity for forests’ growth in the country. Because as the year’s longest four-month wet season is a source of trillions of litters rainwater needed for the seedlings to grow fast and hold their grip in soil strongly,” Malik Amin told media.

He said that tree plantation is vital for conserving nutrient-rich soil through regeneration of forests across the country. “Being a proven method to maintain the fertility of the soil by protecting the soil from erosion and nutrient loss, the soil conservation is important because soil is crucial for many aspects of the human life and non-living beings.

For, it does provide food, filters air and water and helps to decompose biological waste into nutrients for new plant life,” the prime minister’s aide argued. Malik Amin Aslam told media that the COVID – 19 pandemic has brought new challenges for the country in terms of job losses and slow-down in economic activities.

Green Jobs

But through tree plantation activities new green jobs are being created and youth are being engaged in such healthy activities to boost their contribution in the country’s fight against climate change and environmental degradation. He told media further that the tree plantation activities during the ongoing three-month monsoon season will lead to generation of estimated 34,470 green jobs for daily wagers, who have been rendered unemployed because of the COVID – 19 pandemic.

The prime minister’s advisor Malik Amin Aslam said, “Though all activities related to forestry and wildlife are labour-intensive, two sectors will are being tapped into playing a more positive role in providing much-needed local livelihoods to millions in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic.

Conveying the prime minister Imran Khan’s enhanced interest in protection of forests and wildlife resources in the country, he said the number of such exclusive zones, where the plants and trees could grow and wild life flourish, would be significantly enhanced in the coming days under the present government’s ambition Ten Billion Tree Tsunami Programme being implemented across the country with the fullest support of the provincial governments, educational institutions, INGOs, NGOs and other civil society organisations.

The advisor also said, “Over the past two years of the present government, 300 million trees have been planted across the country, while new nurseries are working in the higher pace to hike this number to one billion by June next year”. Malik Amin Aslam said that present government is committed to boosting country’s forest cover.

Billion Tree Tsunami Programme

For this purpose, all provincial and federal government organisations, educational institutions, corporate sector, NGOs and media were being approached and engaged to join the government’s efforts for re-invigorating the country’s ailing forest sector. “To achieve this goal of 10 Billion Tree Tsunami Programme is particularly important, because forests are the best way to cope with various deleterious socio-economic, environmental and health-related fallouts of global warming-triggered climate crisis, particularly floods, droughts, heat waves, desertification, wind erosion, storm-rains and heavy winds, cyclones, sea intrusion, glacial melt, erratic and torrential rain being experienced in the country in a more frequent and intensified manner.”

He said that role of the country’s youth and teachers is critical to achieve Prime Minister Imran Khan’s vision of ‘Clean Green Pakistan’. “However, it is my earnest appeal to the youth and teachers join the government’s efforts for achieving the prime minister’s vision of the ‘Clean Green Pakistan’ and to plant trees and protect them so that it grows into the healthy trees.”