World Wide Funds for Nature-Pakistan (WWF-P) has welcomed the initiative of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz for launching the monsoon tree plantation campaign 2006 on July 19 with the announcement that 40 million saplings would be planted across the country.
According to a WWF's spokesman here on Thursday, the WWF-P supports the idea of a mass plantation campaign but is concerned about the survival and growth of these saplings and the state of forests in Pakistan. Despite numerous reforestation campaigns launched over the years by the government, the FAO publication 'State of the world's forest 2005' indicates that Pakistan has lost approximately 40,000 hectares of forest in the year 2004 and 2005. Hence, WWF-P is concerned about the success of the present campaign in increasing Pakistan's covered area.
At the inaugural ceremony the Prime Minister stated that the government has planned to increase the country's forest cover from the current 5-percent of the country's total land area to 6-percent by the year 2015. However, according to the FAO publication only 3.1-percent of Pakistan's land is forested.