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LAHORE, Jul 07 (APP): Pakistan Furniture Council (PFC) Chief Executive Officer Mian Kashif Ashfaq has said that comparing deforestation rate of Pakistan with the world every year nearly 10 million hectares of forests are deforested worldwide, equal to the area of Portugal.
Addressing a seminar on “ Hazardous impact of growing deforestation in Pakistan” here, he said around half of this high deforestation was counterbalanced by re-growing of forests that means half of green gold was lost every year.
Declaring over population, poverty and unnecessary trees logging were one of the major causes of deforestation in developing countries including Pakistan, he said that Pakistan’s population was only 37 million in 1947 which soared to a record 241 million last year, if continued with such pace, will result vanishing of the green gold, wildlife and bees’ population.
In such a grim scenario, the challenges of food security would be further aggravated for countries like Pakistan and people would be exposed to hunger and starvation.
He said about 60 percent of forests were being used as firewood in the country, 25 percent for furniture and 15 percent of trees are being lost due to urbanization and community-driven demands.
“The deforestation was a national challenge and there was a need to impose a ‘green emergency’ to conserve and protect the green gold by looking above party politics.” He also suggested an agreement between Pakistan and Afghanistan to control the smuggling of timber.
Mian Kashif Ashfaq said that wood demand also increases manifolds due to shortage of natural gas, coal and high prices of LPG cylinders especially in KPK and Gilgit regions.
He said deforestation was a major reason for rising of temperature and climate change. According to National Forest Policy 2015, Pakistan’s total forest-covered area is five percent and the country was losing about 27,000 hectares of forests per year, mainly occurring in private and community-owned natural forests.
He said as per national policy forest resources in all provinces, especially in KPK and Gilgit Baltistan are under tremendous pressure from timber mafia, particularly in the communal lands, shamalat, guzara, and privately owned forests.
Adversely impacted agriculture yield and quantity of water at outlets due to fast melting of glaciers due to rising temperature, the policy said that deforestation in watershed areas can trigger land degradation, loss of biodiversity and marine life besides making negative effects on wildlife and aquatic resources, he concluded.