More than 70 million saplings would be planted all over the country during the spring tree planting campaign 2009 beginning from the last week of January, 2009. Officials told that targets of the forthcoming spring plantation drive 2009 include planting 20 million saplings in Punjab, eight million in Sindh, 17 million in NWFP, one million in Balochistan, 10 million in AJ&K, three million in Northern Areas and eight million in Fata.
In addition to this, CDA would plant 0.40 million saplings, IUCN 0.50 million, Ministry of Defence one million, NHA 0.50 million whereas 0.417 million saplings would be planted under the Rachna Doab project, they told. They said a comprehensive monitoring would be evolved so as to ensure the maximum survival of the planted saplings, adding these plants would-be monitored at least for three to four years. They said the targets for the tree planting are given to the provinces and other departments at their will and they must achieve these targets.
Moreover, the Environment Ministry has already declared to celebrate 2009 as the Year of Environment so it is the opportunity for the provinces and other stakeholders to play their active role for making 2009, the National Year of Environment a success.
It is worth to mention here that Pakistan is facing severe consequences of deforestation. To reverse this trend, there is need to make efforts to increase the forest cover to 6 per cent by 2015 under Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
In order to achieve MDG targets of respective provinces, Ministry of Environment is sponsoring six mega projects of Forestry Sector in all provinces, AJ&K and Fata.