ISLAMABAD - The federal government has approved an amount of one billion rupees for the Prime Minister Green Pakistan Programme (GPP) to boost tree cover in the country.

Talking to media yesterday, Secretary Climate Change Syed Abu Ahmad Akif said: “This is encouraging to see the present government’s seriousness towards fighting deforestation and increasing area under trees, which is central to achieving national climate resilience.” Under the GPP, 100 million trees will be planted across the countries, he added.

Akif said that the five-year programme aims to mitigate climate change-induced risks particularly floods, land and river erosion, land degradation, desertification and fight air pollution. It also aims to encourage all segments of the society to plant trees for their own benefits and to secure future of the next generations.

He said that unfortunately the share of the country’s forestry sector in the national GDP is underestimated at 0.33 per cent, mainly due to non-valuation of environmental and ecological services of forests.  He emphasized: “We must raise awareness among the policymakers, politicians and the people about the unprecedented socio-economic and health-related benefits of the forestry and engage them in country’s overall efforts for fighting deforestation and increase tree cover.”

Akif said that an improving air quality must be ranked as a top national health and development priority. For, increasing air pollution levels are putting the health of millions of people in the country at risk and have proved a major roadblock to efforts being taken for achieving overall environmental development goals. 

He said that before devolution of environment sector to the provinces under the 18th amendment, an effective air quality monitoring system was operational. He said that Rs1.2 billion Environment Monitoring System (EMS) purchased from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) five years ago with assistance from the Japanese government was functioning in all provincial environmental protection agencies and the Islamabad environmental protection agency was coordinating with them to control air pollution through an effective monitoring system under the EMS. But the coordination among provinces and the federal environmental protection agency hit snags and functioning of the EMS system had gradually slowed down since 2011 – the year of devolution of various federal subjects, including environment to the province. However, he said that they were taking steps to strengthen the EMS system so that overall environmental monitoring, particularly air quality monitoring is revived.

Akif, however, recalled that the Senate Committee on Climate Change had urged the Sindh government to protect mangroves forests and increase area under them. They also asked the provincial government to increase number of treatment plants to treat industrial effluents, sewage and domestic wastewater before it disgorges into the sea for protecting and conserving marine and coastal ecosystems from contamination, he added.