Govt to provide tree plantation data to Supreme Court

Prime Minister Imran Khan on Saturday issued directions for full cooperation with the Supreme Court and compliance with its order, which seeks details of the government’s flagship 10 Billion Tree Tsunami Project.

Premier Imran told his Special Assistant on Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam to provide full details of the project to the court. In this regard, the government has sought data from the provinces and contacted Suparco for drone images of the plantation, which would be submitted to the court.

The ‘Plant for Pakistan’, also known as ‘10 Billion Tree Tsunami’, is a five-year project to plant 10 billion trees across Pakistan from 2018 to 2023. PM Imran kicked off the drive on September 2, 2018 with approximately 1.5 million trees planted on the first day.

However, expressing serious doubts over the government claims, the Supreme Court earlier this week, summoned all records of the project, including details of the funds so far spent and the satellite images of the areas, where plantation drive was under way.

Hearing a case pertaining to plantation of trees along riverbanks and canals on Tuesday, a three-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed, observed that trees were apparently being planted on paper as what they had actually witnessed was massive deforestation in all parts of the country.

Aslam, the SAPM, said that the ‘billion tree tsunami’ is a flagship project of “the federal government which is being implemented in line with the vision of merit and transparency” of the prime minister.

“The aspect of complete transparency in the project has been given a priority from day one. International environmental organisations have also acknowledged the transparency of the project,” he said, following a meeting with the prime minister on Saturday.

“We will fully cooperate with the court to provide details of the project,” Aslam said.

During the meeting, he added that the prime minister issued instructions for the provision of all relevant records to the court.

In this regard, the federal government has sought data from all the provinces, while Suparco has been asked to provide satellite images. The Ministry of Climate Change has also written letters to provincial forest secretaries and chief secretaries, asking for the project’s data from 2019 to June 2020.