Documentation of forest resources starts in Mansehra

Five thousand hectares of degraded land marked for afforestation

PESHAWAR: The federal government has started work on documentation of sustainable and unsustainable forests and other allied resources on pilot basis in Mansehra district besides rehabilitation of 5,000 hectares of degraded land, which would be achieved through massive plantations under ‘Plant for Pakistan’ initiative of Prime Minister Imran Khan.

All sustainable and un-sustainable forest resources including assessment of pasture management, harvest of non-timber-forest produce (NTFP) and wildlife through trophy hunting programmes and other eco-tourism enterprises will be documented in Mansehra district during next three years, said Sustainable Forests Management (SFM) Project Coordinator Faique Khan on Monday.

FSM project with allocation of $8 million was launched in Khyber Pakthunkhwa, Punjab and Sindh provinces in 2017 by Ministry of Climate Change Islamabad with financial support of UNDP Pakistan and Global Environment Faculty (GEF) with major focus on sustainable conservation and management of forests and allied resources in the province.

He said 5,000 hectares including degraded forests land would be rehabilitated by carrying out massive plantations during the second phase of billion trees afforestation project (BTAP) under which one billion trees would be planted in K-P, adding FSM project will continue till 2021.

In K-P, he said two major landscapes in Kaghan and Siran forests divisions were selected on pilot basis to secure multiple benefits from its rich eco-system and biodiversity of high conservation value forests (HCVF).

Efforts are focussed on addressing issues of climate change besides environmental degradation through embedding effective management tools for sustainable use of elements of biodiversity and conservation forests resources on scientific lines.

“The project has initiated the task to revise working plans codes of 1952 on which whole management, conservation and exploitation of forest resources depends,” he said.

Faique said development of monitoring mechanism was also under process through Forestry Planning and Monitoring Circle Peshawar to effectively measures reports, document data and assess different parameters of working plans’ implementations.

Through an effective monitoring system, he said, data will be managed to extract information and ensure timely decisions even in routine functioning of field formations based on available data and findings for prompt service delivery.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 22^nd, 2019.