Disappearing forests

The forests of Pakistan are disappearing faster than you can say ‘matchstick.’ The National Assembly has roused itself from its perennial torpor regarding matters environmental and assorted members have poked sharp sticks at the forest wing of the Climate Change Ministry, saying that it has failed to control deforestation at provincial level. At a meeting of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Climate Change, parliamentarians said that the illegal logging that was widespread in all afforested areas of the country was simply impossible without the active collusion of forestry department officials. The lawmakers rejected the claims by forestry officials that the logging was all controlled by “mafias” along with local politicians and described the evidence presented as “unconvincing”. It is a racing certainty that ‘mafias’ and local politicians are involved, but it is the central role in illegal logging played by those supposedly there to conserve and protect our trees that concerned the parliamentarians.

Any regular visitor to the forests of Pakistan over the last 20 years will have not failed to notice the loss of trees. Noticed the increased sliding in areas of bare slopes that regularly block the roads in periods of heavy rain. Noticed the silted rivers and streams. Noticed the increase in urban flooding and land erosion generally. The damage done to the natural environment is valued at countless billions of rupees, there is no quick fix and accelerating effects of climate change nationally are only going to get worse. The buck stops for this one at the ministry for climate change, and it is up to the ministry to intervene hard and fast if the brakes are to be put on what is turning into a national disaster. Trees are not replaced overnight, and even the ambitious planting programme in Khybher-Pakhtunkhwa can take up to two generations — fifty years — to reach its full potential even if it is comprehensively implemented. Deforestation is yet another self-inflicted wound.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 3^rd, 2016.

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