ISLAMABAD PR - Pakistan Tobacco Company Limited (PTC) in collaboration with the Ministry of Climate Change inaugurated the Aerial Seeding Event. The chief guest, Malik Amin Aslam, Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Climate Change, inaugurated the event; an afforestation activity that has never been undertaken before by any private sector organisation in Pakistan. 

The event commenced Aerial Seeding of seed balls, in Barakahu Reserve Forest on nearly 700 acres of land.  The chief guest dropped seed balls in the area whilst in the helicopter, formally marking the start of the plantation campaign. 

Speaking on the occasion, Malik Amin Aslam appreciated the efforts being made by PTC on reverse deforestation and congratulated them on initiating the aerial seeding. “This initiative is commendable as Pakistan is already under immense pressure due to drastic change in the climate and such afforestation attempts to reclaim the lost forest cover of Pakistan will prove to be a great tool to ensure ‘A Better Tomorrow’. 

We will observe the results and once successful then we will be replicating this activity across Pakistan in the coming years,” he said.

Director Legal & External Affairs, Asad Shah said that PTC had currently the oldest and largest private sector afforestation programme in the country and had planted and distributed 100+ million trees since 1981 and this year we had embarked with a renewed commitment to our environment, social and governance agenda. “We have plans to plant and distribute 55 million plants this year, and the company aims at taking this number to 100+ million plants annually by 2025. Along with our plans to shift our operations to renewable energy, we aim to become amongst the biggest contributors to British American Tobacco’s agenda of being carbon neutral by 2030,” he added. 

He said that through 3D mapping of the Barakahu Reserve Forest, they would be continuously monitoring the results of this activity year on year basis. This new technology enabled us to see the addition that we would be making to increase the forest cover, he maintained.

The company representative, Muhammad Qasim, explained that each seed ball contained four seeds of indigenous species and had a success rate of more than 70%. The company had plans of dispersing 12 million seed balls during this activity in phases across the country.