Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government prepares draft rangelands policy

The provincial government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa prepared draft rangelands policy to improve the productivity of such areas rehabilitate the degraded one, conserve biodiversity and contribute in the efforts in combating issues of global warming, climatic change, and desertification.
The draft policy was unveiled in a one-day workshop organised under the auspices of Pakistan Forest Institute (PFI) with support of International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) on Monday. Besides, Secretary Environment, KP and Director General PFI, Syed Said Badshah Bokhari, Country Representative ICIMOD Abdul Wahid Jasra, senior officials of Forests and Wildlife Department and former foresters attended the function in large.
KP Minister for Environment, Wajid Ali Khan was chief guest on the occasion. The minister said formulation of KP rangelands policy is immensely felt to conserve and develop the natural resources of the rangelands following the devolution of the Federal Ministry of Environment under the 18th constitutional amendment. Presenting the draft of the policy, Anwar Ali of PFI said, the first forest policy was adopted by the British Government of the then India in 1894 which called only for protection and management of forest state resources and was silent on the degradation of rangeland resources.
After independence of Pakistan, he said, even the management of rangelands did not find place in the forests' policy adopted by Government of Pakistan in 1955. However, later on the Food and Agriculture Commission had given their recommendations for management of rangelands of Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan and no policy guidelines were given for rangelands of KP. He said, the KP Forests Policy 1999 had also not given any proper guidelines for the conservation and management of the range lands resources.
Thus, he said, a need to develop a separate range policy on provincial level was direly felt to focus on the management of rangelands resources in KP. As per the proposed policy, forests department will continue to perform as the custodian and managers of the rangelands of KP due to availability of better infrastructure there, trained manpower.
Three range management divisions will be created in KP Forest Department to look after range management interventions in Malakand, Hazara and Peshawar regions. He said an officer of the rank of District Forests Officer (DFO) will head each of the divisions and would be assisted by Range Forests Officer and other field staff. Similarly, Director Research and Development KP Forest Department will be responsible for co-ordination, implementation and monitoring of the range management activities in the province.