Pakistan Turning Epidemic-Hit Daily Wagers Into Tree Planters

The announcement of the Pakistani government to employ tens of thousands of out-ofwork labourers in the tree plantation campaign was like charcoal in the snowy weather for Muhammad Hafeez, who has been struggling to get by after losing his job due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 and the subsequent lockdown in Pakistan. “I am a daily wage worker and used to earn a meagre amount for the sustenance of my family. Although my family always finds difficulty to make both ends meet with that amount, we would manage to live within our means,” Mr Hafeez, a resident of Pakistan’s eastern district of Rawalpindi, told Xinhua.

“I work as a mason and when the construction work was in full bloom, it was somehow convenient to find work with a decent wage. Since the imposition of the lockdown in the country to stem the spread of the coronavirus, the situation has gone from bad to worse for me,” the 39-year-old man said.

Thanks to the recently launched “Green Stimulus” programme by the Pakistani government, Mr Hafeez could now make some 800 rupees (FJ$23.87) a day, enough to feed his four-member family.

Considering the influence of the lockdown, the government introduced the green programme as part of its efforts to extend green cover in the country and to create job opportunities in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis.

The newly designed green program is a part of the country’s ambitious “10 Billion Tree Tsunami” project launched to fight climate changerelated adverse phenomena by planting hundreds of millions of trees in the next few years.

“The decision of providing employment through the tree plantation campaign is indeed a happy news for all those poor families like mine. It would prove a great solace in this crisis-like situation,” Mr Hafeez said.

“In my village, thousands of saplings were planted during the previous tree plantation drive which greatly helped the local population to remain safe from frequent landslides which is a common phenomenon due to massive deforestation.

“I am pretty hopeful that the recently announced campaign would reduce the miseries of many poor families in multiple ways,” he said. The government in April gave an exemption to the forestry department to restart the all-important planting project and create job opportunities for labourers who lost their jobs in the coronavirus-triggered lockdown. Some 65000 jobs have been created initially, and according to government officials, millions more will be targeted in later stages.

This is the perfect example of how countries can keep their economies running by providing job opportunities during the pandemic and prepare themselves for the looming threat of climate change as well, Talat Anwar, a renowned economist and former advisor on macroeconomic policy at the Ministry of Planning, Development and Special Initiatives, told Xinhua.

He said according to an assessment by the Planning Commission of Pakistan, 12.3 to 18.5 million people will lose their jobs, and millions more will fall below the poverty line due to the coronavirus outbreak.