Pakistan’s ‘billion tree’ plan
LAHORE: The change is drastic: in Heroshah, previously arid hills are now covered with forest as far as the horizon. In northwestern Pakistan, hundreds of millions of trees have been planted to fight deforestation.
In 2015 and 2016, some 16,000 labourers planted more than 900,000 fast-growing eucalyptus trees in Heroshah, and that was just a fraction of effort across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
“Before, it was completely burnt land. Now, they have green gold in their hands,” said forest manager Pervaiz Manan.
He said the new trees would reinvigorate the area’s scenic beauty, control erosion, mitigate climate change, reduce floods and increase precipitation.
Residents see them as an economic boost, which, officials hope, would deter them from cutting the new growth for firewood in a region with sparse electricity.
Further north, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Swat, many high valleys were denuded by the Taliban from 2006 to 2009. Now, they are covered in pine saplings.
The plantations are part of the “Billion Tree Tsunami”, a provincial government programme that has seen 300 million trees of 42 species planted. A further 150 million plants were given to landowners, while strict forest regeneration measures have allowed the regrowth of 730 million trees — roughly 1.2 billion new trees in total, the programme’s management said.