PESHAWAR: The successful forests strategy of the present elected government to bring maximum arid and semi arid lands of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) under plantation for economic development of tribesmen and improvement of environment, has helped increased its total forests areas up to 0.53 million hectares.
According to Landcover Atlas of Pakistan 2012 study conducted by Pakistan Forests Institute (PFI) Government of Khyber Pakthunkhwa, the total covered area of FATA is 534579 million hectares showing a significant increase in the forest covered areas of FATA, owing to massive plantations campaigns, education of tribesmen and advocacy programs with regular intervals.
The showing of different saplings of trees in Bajaur, Khyber, South Waziristan, North Waziristan, Orakzai, Kurram, Mohmand and Orkazai Agency during monsoon and spring tree plantations campaigns had helped augmented forestry cover up to 19.5 percent of total land area 0.53 million (excluding alpine pasture) in FATA.
The young plantation on 10,539 million hectares has richly contributed in the overall increase of the forestry cover in tribal areas.
The study was based on latest Geographic Information System (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) techniques, revealing 0.3 percent increase in existing Pakistan's total covered forests areas i.e is 5.1 % against Forestry Sector Master Plan (FSMP) report of 4.8 percent conducted in 1992.
Similarly, the total area under agriculture cultivation of the country is around 25.52 million hectares.
Khyber Pakthunkhwa is the most lush green province of the country where 3.3 percent increase in its total forestry covered area raising it to 1.51 million hectares ie 20.3 percent of its total areas has been registered. Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan, Gilgit Baltistan, Azad Kashmir, FATA/Frontier Regions and Islamabad have forests covered on 2.7%, 4.6%, 1.4%, 4.8%, 36.9%, 19.5% and 22.2 % lands respectively. The total covered area of Punjab is 0.55 million hectares followed by Sindh 0.66 million hectares, Balochistan 0.50 million hectares, Gilgit Baltistan 0.34million hectares, AJK 0.44million hectares , FATA and Frontier Regions 0.53million hectares and Islamabad 0.22m hectares respectively.
The Landcover Atlas 2012 report has been shared with all provincial forest departments including Azad Kashmir and Fata and valuable suggestions from the concerned departments were incorporated.
The land over Atlas indicates a lot of barran land in around the forests and recommended to bring under its plantation cover through mass afforstration programs to meet people's wood and fuel demands. Coordination between PFI and provincial forests departments was also stressed.
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