International Mountain Day: Govt urged to curtail deforestatation

Operational manager NIDA says recent floods in K-P had adversely affected Kohistan.

PESHAWAR: Participants at a seminar highlighted the need to save mountains in Kohistan from deforestation. Zahoorul Haq, operational manager for National Integrated Development Agency (NIDA), said the recent floods in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) had adversely affected Kohistan.

He attributed the main cause of the bulk of the damage to growing deforestation on the mountains of the district. He appreciated the government’s initiative to control the situation and said that the steps taken by the government to revive the forests in Kohistan could improve the deteriorating conditions.

He was speaking at a seminar titled “Safe Environment and Forest” on Saturday in Tehsil Paten in Kohistan to mark the International Mountain Day. The seminar was open to all and scholars, government officials and students, among others, attended it. It was organised by NIDA, a non-governmental organisation, in collaboration with the Wildlife Department of K-P.

“Controlling deforestation and planting different kinds of species are some of the biggest achievements of the present government,” Haq said during his speech. However, he said that there was a need to take more steps to improve the forests in the province, to meet the growing global warming challenges.

Abdul Haleem, district forest officer (DFO), was the chief guest. He said that forests are a rich asset for any country and care needs to be taken to discourage the increasing deforestation in the country, especially Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. He added that the importance of mountains in Kohistan cannot be discounted as water from mountains in Kohistan irrigated agricultural land in the province.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 12^th, 2010.