Global warming and climate change are scientific facts that strike in the face with abundant evidence in poor quality of air, water and degradation of environment. The political class of the world at large has been slow to realizing the adverse effects of industrialization, urbanization and population explosion.
Too much damage has already occurred and too little seems to have been done to reverse the trend. For decades, environmentalists and the scientific community kept raising their concerns but the largest economies of the world, and the newly industrialized states entering the race for economic growth, like China and India, refused to pay any heed. The choices big and small economies make for energy production and consumption, transportation and running big machines affect the entire globe. There is also the issue of shrinking rain forests and degradation of forests cover around the world that contribute to the collective environmental challenges.
There is enough evidence to suggest that there are countries that are more vulnerable to climate change than others and less prepared to deal with its consequences for agricultural economy and human livelihood. Pakistan is one of them. It is one of the top ten countries expected to see the gravest impact of climate change, yet its political leadership for long did not recognize environmental degradation as a critical policy issue. It was only with the rise of Imran Khan that we have seen a state-driven campaign to increase the forest cover, but it faces enormous challenges.
The biggest challenge is Pakistan's semi-arid climate that leaves most of its lands as deserts. It is only in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa that has a large natural forest cover, but green forests have been disappearing due to illegal logging for valuable timber.
Sadly, while the population of Pakistan has almost quadrupled since independence, emerging as the fifth largest populated country in the world, its forest cover has declined. Compared to the global average of 31 percent, Pakistan’s forests cover less than 6 percent of its land.
The British, an alien colonial power, had perhaps cared better about the environment than its successive rulers for the past 74 years. They developed forestry as a government department and in all the areas that now constitute Pakistan established forests by selecting fast-growing native species of plants and trees.
Rasul Bakhsh Rais
The British, an alien colonial power, had perhaps cared better about the environment than its successive rulers for the past 74 years. They developed forestry as a government department and in all the areas that now constitute Pakistan established forests by selecting fast-growing native species of plants and trees. In 1866, the then Punjab government planted the first man-made forest in the country on 12,000 acres or about 48.6 square kilometers. We can see even bigger forests of the British era in different parts of the country.
Instead of establishing more forests with growing population, the rulers of Pakistan have caused a deviating decline. The very people, the bureaucratic class at the district level, who are responsible for maintaining the forests, have allowed illegal logging without caring to reforest the harvested areas. An even bigger problem is encroachment and occupying of government forest that couldn’t be possible without the connivance of forest officials and the political class. In some instances, in the past, forestlands were illegally allotted to influential people in the past.
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa vowed to reclaim the illegally occupied forestlands, but success thus far has been only spotty as cases are pending in court.
Whatever his failures and successes, Imran Khan perhaps will be known not only for raising consistently the level of environmental consciousness, but also launching the most ambitious program of greening Pakistan.
His provincial government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa between 2013 and 2019 achieved a remarkable success by raising the forest cover to 27 percent from 20 percent. The aim is to plant 10 billion trees by the end of his tenure in 2023.
With low perception and annual rainfall in most of the country, planting and taking care of trees requires continued effort for years. For decades, we have seen inauguration of spring and monsoon tree planation season with big fanfare, leaving much to the government departments to care for the saplings. Now the difference is that environmentalists in Pakistan have become more vocal, even launching their own greening initiatives and monitoring the government-led efforts.
There are countless problems Pakistan faces in its greening program. Chief among them are unsustainable population growth, urbanization, poverty and a very large segment of the population depending on wood as fuel for cooking and heating. Social forestry and making the local population as stakeholders — from raising nurseries to preserving forests — has worked in the case of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which can be replicated.
The big question for Pakistan is balancing economic development priorities and ecological concerns.
Sprawling urban centers, like Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad may endlessly require more chopping down of more trees. A recent decision to convert Lahore Flying Club land into a business hub, and the establishment of the Ravi River Front city over vast agricultural lands, conflict with the goals of the greening initiative. It would be better to turn the flying club land into a public park, saving thousands of old trees and planting many thousands more.
– Rasul Bakhsh Rais is Professor of Political Science in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, LUMS, Lahore. His latest book is “Islam, Ethnicity and Power Politics: Constructing Pakistan’s National Identity” (Oxford University Press, 2017).
Twitter: @RasulRais
