ISLAMABAD-Islamabad Wildlife Management Board organized a training workshop to engage residents for making seed balls.
The event titled was arranged at Trail 5 in Margalla Hills National Park.
“The participation of local communities is propitious as it will help develop indigenous human resource to contribute maximum share in massive plantation target under Clean Green Pakistan,” said Assistant Director IWMB Sakhawat Ali.
He said, “It is an easy process to plant forest through seed balls where we have set 100,000 as target to be produced during this season. We have selected only indigenous species of plants for producing seed balls and no foreign specie has been used.”
“Seed Balls preparation an initiative to save Pakistan and the earth at large is a new and unique way of plantation and is said to give almost 50 per cent success rate,” Sakhawat said. He added that the seed ball preparation process was very simple as it involved soil, water, fertilizer, charcoal and seeds. “The seed is coated under the layer of clay and compost created of animals and insects. This thick layer has the tendency of preserving the seeds for almost one year from unsuitable weather conditions like rains. It waits for the right conditions to germinate and grow,” Sakhawat explained. He said that all we had to do was to throw these seed balls around the year irrespective of season during travelling, walking, hiking or driving.
He added that thick layer coated on the seed had sufficient ratios of essential nutrients to grow.
whereas this simple way of plantation had yielded positive results after implementation in many countries.
A large number of local residents, SMEC staff and civil society with their families participated in the workshop.