Government to implement Rs 12 million mega forestry project

The Ministry of Environment has decided to implement a mega forestry sector project, costing Rs 12 million during the current fiscal year. This was decided in an inter-provincial and inter-ministerial meeting on monsoons tree plantation Campaign, 2008 here on Friday.
Federal Minister for Environment Hameedullah Jan Afridi chaired the meeting attended by senior officials of Ministry of Environment and concerned departments from all the four provinces. It is a six-year mega project, aimed at enhancing tree cover from five to six percent of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
"Mega forestry sector resources development projects will be implemented in all four provinces, Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), Northern Areas and Federally Administered Tribal Area (Fata). The work on these projects would be initiated in the current fiscal year", said Afridi.
It was decided that during the monsoon tree plantation campaign, 2008 a total of 47.27 million saplings will be planted throughout the country, which would start from the second week of the current month.
During the campaign, 13 million saplings would be planted in Punjab, 10 million in Sindh, 9.5 million in NWFP, seven million in Fata, six million in AJK and 0.5 million in Balochistan. Besides, others departments, including Capital Development Authority (CDA) will plant 1.27 million saplings during this campaign.
The Minister said that realistic targets had been set for tree plantation and a comprehensive monitoring system had been evolved to ensure maximum survival of the plants. He said that the provision of the funds to the provinces would be based on the efficiency.
He said that the provinces, showing good performance for development of the forests, would be provided more funds whereas, the funds of the provinces not achieving the targets would be shifted to the other provinces. The Minister directed the provinces to launch comprehensive awareness campaign to boost the efforts for tree plantation and protection of forests.
He also directed the provinces to allocate 10 percent of nurseries for provision of plants to the schools and other educational institutions free of cost and to furnish their progress reports to the Federal government on regular basis.
He said that third party monitoring evaluation system would be introduced to ensure the transparency and utilisation of funds and to evaluate the progress on the forestry sector projects.
Afridi said that satellite-monitoring system would be introduced from 2010 to check the progress of various tree plantation campaigns, forestry sector development projects and status of the present forests in the country. He said that the forest cover would be increased by one percent by 2015. He said that the development sector of forestry resources would not only increase the number of plants, but would also help to earn foreign exchange through carbon credit system.