By: Azhar Azam
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) has been branded as theatre of militancy and terrorism by the United States and its allies since 9/11 attacks but thanks to the efforts of Pakistan military and civil armed forces, the third-largest province of Pakistan has been taking significant strides towards peace and stability.
Previously known as North-West Frontier Post (NWFP), KP is now contributing profoundly to the social, communal, ecological, environmental, and economic benefits as well as to the international climate change, biodiversity, and land degradation in line with Bonn Challenge.
Bonn Challenge is a global effort which was initiated in 2011 by the government of Germany and International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to bring 150 million hectares (m ha)of the world’s deforested and degraded land into restoration by 2020 and another 350 m ha by 2030.
The restoration of 150 m ha deforested and degraded land is billed to create net benefits of $84 billion per year consonant with FLR approach – brining direct additional income opportunities for rural communities worldwide. Achieving the goal of 350 m ha could generate $170 billion per year.
In 2014, the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa – Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) – launched a campaign ‘Green Growth Initiative’ – Billion Tree Tsunami (BTT) – to enhance forest resource base, restoration and upgradation forest biomes, preventing environment degradation, livelihood improvement, and job creation in rural areas.
The critics and political rivals wasted no time to poke fun at Imran Khan’s grand target to plant one billion trees. But the provincial government has been committed to execute the plan – the brain child of their leader.
Under the provincial government program, some 300 million trees of 42 different species were planted across the KP province. Another 150 million plants were distributed among the landowners while the forest regeneration measures also allowed the plantation of more than 700 million trees – bringing the tally to over one billion.
These statistics have been confirmed by several international independent experts, organizations, and news agencies including World Wildlife Fund (WWF), International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and Agence France-Presse (AFP) – third largest news agency after the Associated Press (AP) and Reuters.
AFP in its publication ‘Green gold: Pakistan plants hundreds of millions of trees’ on June 26 admired the enormous KP government’s endeavor, stating:
‘The change is drastic: around the region of Heroshah, previously arid hills are now covered with forest as far as the horizon. In Northwestern Pakistan, hundreds of millions of trees have been planted to fight deforestation.’
‘We are 100 percent confident that the figure about the billion trees is correct’, Manager of Pakistani branch of the World Wildlife Fund after conducting an independent audit of the project.
The French news agency also cited an official from Sindh Forest Department who itemized that ‘more than 60 percent of the forests lining Sindh’s riverbanks have disappeared in the last 60 years – a disaster'.
The story is picked by reputed international dailies such as Al Jazeera, Arab News, The Hindu, and India Times to corroborate the claim of over one billion trees plantation in the KP province of battle-hardened Pakistan.
In August 2017, IUCN appreciated KP’s Billion Tree Tsunami Afforestation Project (BTTAP) for surpassing ‘its target by restoring and planting trees in 350,000 hectares of degraded forest landscapes’.
The global authority on the status of the natural world noted that an additional 13,000 private tree nurseries were established in the province – which boosted local incomes, generated thousands of green jobs, and empowered unemployed youth and women.
Cataloging Billion Tree Tsunami (BTT) the project ‘a true conservative story’, IUCN congratulated the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa which demonstrates Pakistan’s leadership role in the international restoration effort and continued commitment to the Bonn Challenge.
In March 2018, KP pledged an additional 252,000 hectares to the Bonn Challenge at the third international high level roundtable in Brazil. The KP pledge became the first sub-national pledge, the first pledge to be fully implemented, and the first pledge to be increased.