Pakistan’s juniper forests disappearing

In Ziarat district, 247,000-acre forest of juniper tree may soon disappear due to lack of conservation efforts

Kalat and Ziarat in Balochistan have the oldest and second-largest juniper forests in the world. Juniper trees are considered among the oldest growing tree species often termed as living fossils and can live for more than 3,000 years.

Situated in Ziarat district of Balochistan, these forests grow in an extremely dry and rugged environment between 2000-3000 meters.

Overall, Pakistan forests are limited, covering only 4.8 per cent of total land area, far below optimal standard of 25 per cent forest cover for a country. Most of the natural forests are concentrated in the mountainous regions of the north, covering Himalaya and Karakoram ranges.

In Ziarat District, a 247,000-acre forest of juniper trees, some of which are thousands of years old, may soon disappear due to lack of conservation efforts and the cutting of trees by villagers in substitute to fuel.

The Juniper forest in Ziarat Valley is spread over merely eight square kilometres, while the juniper forest in Kalat’s Harboi Hills is spread over 30 square kilometres. Harboi Hill forests are less explored because of the law and order situation and experts prefer to visit Ziarat over Kalat.

Even as Ziarat’s dry, cold climate may be favorable to the growth of Juniper trees, it drives locals to use their branches for firewood.

The juniper forests have suffered from temperature rises and ongoing drought since 1994. Snowfall and rainfall patterns have become irregular. Before the drought, snow fell regularly in winter months. The use of banned sprays on nearby apple trees creates diseases amongst juniper trees. Pakistan is one of the few countries where banned agriculture sprays are used.

The axing of juniper trees continues in and around Ziarat. Villagers also cut the trees for shelter besides firewood in extreme cold weather, when temperature is sub-zero in the entire valley.

However, although a pipeline provides gas to the main town of Ziarat, most villages do not have access to it. During the winter, pressure in the pipes drops drastically, leaving the locals without gas for weeks at a time.

Activists and some villagers have condemned both the provincial Department of Forest and Wildlife as well as various organisations for slow progress in preserving the juniper forest. Unesco has declared Ziarat’s juniper forest a “Biosphere Reserve”, Pakistan’s second, and the United Nations has added the forest to the World Network of Biosphere Reserves. The juniper forests both in Kalat and Ziarat need special attention, especially in regards to funding and to finding a way to stop them drying up, or villagers using the forest as firewood.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 17^th, 2016.