Musharraf launches monsoon tree plantation campaign

President Pervez Musharraf inaugurated the monsoon tree plantation campaign 2008 by planting a sapling at Aiwan-e-Sadr here on Thursday. Talking to mediamen, Federal Minister for Environment Hameedullah Jan Afridi said that Rs 12 billion mega forestry sector resources development projects would be implemented in all the four provinces, including Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), Northern Areas and Federally Administered Tribal Area (Fata).
The work on this project would be initiated in the current fiscal. 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.
Afridi said that the provision of the funds to the provinces would be based on the efficiency, and added that the provinces, showing good performance for development of the forest, would be provided more funds, while the funds of the provinces not achieving the targets would be shifted to other provinces.
The minister said that the provinces had been directed to launch a comprehensive awareness campaign to plant more trees and protect the forest. He said: "We have directed the provinces to allocate 10 percent for their nurseries with the provision free distribution of plants to the schools and other educational institutions."
He said that the provinces had been directed to furnish their progress reports on regular basis, and added that the third party monitoring evaluation system would be introduced to ensure the transparency in utilisation of funds and to evaluate the progress made in the forestry sector.
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 forest in the country.
He said that the forest cover would be increased by one percent by 2015. During the campaign, about47.27million saplings will be planted in the country - 13 million 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. The departments, including the Capital Development Authority (CDA), will plant 1.27 million saplings in and around the Federal capital.