Punjab Minister for Forests, Wildlife and Fisheries Malik Asif Bha Awan inaugurated the "monsoon tree plantation campaign 2016" on Friday under which nine million saplings will be planted across the province this year. Out of these, 3.750 million saplings will be planted on public forest land, 600,000 saplings on other government departments' land, 400,000 saplings on land owned by defence related institutes while 4.250 million saplings will be sown on private lands.
The minister inaugurated the campaign of this year at a ceremony held at Jallo Park which was also attended by the Secretary Forests, Wildlife and Fisheries, Captain Jahanzeb Khan (Retd), Chief Conservator of Forest Central Zone, Rana Shabbir Ahmad, officers of Forest department, civil society representatives and students from different universities. Both the minister and the secretary sowed a sapling each to mark the occasion.
The minister while addressing the participants said accelerating the plantation is need of the time to increase the area under forest cover in the province.
He stressed the need for creating awareness among the growers to make plantation their commercial and financial activity. He said the department would arrange "Farmers' Day" at the nurseries of Forests department to show how profitable this sector is. Secretary Forests, Wildlife and Fisheries, Captain Jahanzeb Khan (Retd) while briefing the minister and the media persons said that Forest department has decided to set up nurseries on 8047 acres of land of the forest department, 95 avenue miles along canals and 92 acres of land of other area. He said that 225 sale points have been established in different cities to create awareness among the masses about importance of plantation and to provide saplings to the people.
He said that development work on different schemes in Jallo Park was underway on fast pace and 40 varieties of palm trees, orchards having 100 varieties of cactus, water garden, Bar BQ area, fountains and falls would be completed. Other projects included renovation of the main entrance gate, setting up of a nursery on Turkish pattern, food court and children play land would also be completed. Later a walk was also held on this occasion led by the minister and the secretary to create awareness in masses about importance of plantation.