Pakistan has been known for decades as one of the major Asian actors of deforestation. As a result of its land degradation, the country has been ranked 7th in the list of nations most likely to suffer from climate change.
But Pakistan’s province of Khyber Pakhtunkhaw (KPK), led by Imran Khan, head of the PTI party, decided to work on changing their faith. The ex-cricket star points that only 3% of the Pakistani’s land is still forested and that the deforestation created a natural imbalance that caused the accelerated melt of the glaciers and fast floods that killed hundreds of inhabitants in the province.
KPK’s commitment to plant a billion tree was a response to the Bonn Challenge. Set up in 2011, the Challenge aims for the reforestation of 150 million hectares of damaged lands by 2020 and already got more than 20 countries to participate. This is really a great project so I think I will dedicate a future post to explore in greater detail their mission, and their current status.
Pakistan was the first country to complete their pledge of 1 billion trees on over 350,000 hectares and they completed it ahead of schedule! In slightly more than two years and thanks to the help of the local community, the province took a big step towards greener days, and that is a huge success on every level.
Wildlife flourished in the newly afforested areas, fast floods reduced in intensity and the local community benefited of the thousands of green jobs created in the tree nurseries that made the project a reality.
In the meantime, the government has started to enforce severe sanctions against illegal timber cutters in order to protect the new green areas. Pushed by the popularity of this program, the central Pakistani government announced the planting of an additional 100 million trees over the course of five years.
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