Forest deptt hires female ‘neghabans’

Lady forest guards to educate community on forest conservation

ISLAMABAD:

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Forest Department has hired female neghabans (forest guards) to mobilise and educate the community for supporting forest conservation and discouraging tree cutting trends in the protected areas of Seran and Kaghan under the 10 Billion Tree Tsunami Plantation (TBTTP) initiative.

“These women are performing the task of a forest guard and are proud to protect the precious natural reserve helpful in reviving green cover and bringing green employment for them," said a K-P forest department official.

The department has ensured massive roadside linear plantation on greenbelts spreading over 148km along the Hazara Motorway that help in preventing soil erosion in the scenic valley of the Hazara division, he said.

The plantation was carried out under the TBTTP project starting from University Road till Manga Interchange, which technically made it 48 avenue kilometres plantation area with some 330 plants installed per kilometre (km), said the divisional forest officer.

He said that local plant species including chir, pine, sarru and other ornamental plants were planted in six avenues along the motorway, forming three-coupled layers of trees during the spring plantation in 2020.

The forest department had inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the National Highway Authority to ensure watering of the plantation, where sowing and other matters were to be managed by the department.

"A total of 48,840 plants have been planted along the avenue in six lanes that have reached a sustainable level and will add more to the beauty of the area," he said.

In another area of Daur watershed plantation at Nouwasher biodiversity complex Abbottabad, the KP forest department had ensured three different types of plantation activities to enhance green cover on the eroded mountains of the area.

The three different plantation activities carried out under TBTTP comprised of Miyawaki plantation, close spacing plantation on slopes and badland plantation.

The forest fepartment official elaborated that in the Miyawaki plantation, which was a close plantation of native species with nature manoeuvre made on eight kanals of land, some 4,600 plants were planted.

He said the second intervention of close-space plantation on 14 hectares of mountain slopes was done to prevent soil erosion, whereby some 60,200 plants were planted closely to create a trap for sand particles to remain intact and ensure soil enrichment.

Thirdly, the band land plantation consisting of 130,000 plants was carried out in the watershed area and adjoining vicinity that included layering and plantation on 25 hectares of land.

To a question, the official said that a target of closures spread over 5,420 hectares of land was set, which was a closed area for no human intervention and grazing of all types.

"The area is selected based on mother trees’ availability, and canopy cover favouring regeneration of local plants through assisted natural regeneration (ANR) process," he added.

He assured that the enclosures were created after local communities' consensus to utilise their forest land for conservation purposes, where the neghabans were hired from the local community.

The official said that over 15 neghabans and forest guards were martyred during forest fires in the region.

"The KP Forest Department has secured hard-earned achievements made amid harsh conditions under TBTTP and Billion Tree Afforestation Project (BTAP)," he underlined.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN-Pakistan) was providing technical assistance to the Ministry of Climate Change to hold a data-based ground study of its carbon stocks absorbed in the forests revived under BTAP, said the official.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, January 10, 2022.