Owners seek power to protect their Guzara forests

MANSEHRA: The owners of forests in the Hazara division on Thursday demanded the government to bring changes in the existing laws to empower them to safeguard and protect their Guzara jungles from the timber mafia.

“The timber mafia has cut forests drastically in the upper parts of Hazara Division. And if the government is sincere to protect green gold from further damages, it should accept us as the real custodians of our jungles,” Allauddin Khan, the president of Forest Owners Association in Hazara, told a presser.

Flanked by the office-bearers of the association, he said that though the government had launched initiatives to protect and preserve the soothing environment in the division it couldn’t effectively curb the timber smuggling.

“Our forests are being illegally cut by the mafia but owners of Guzara forests cannot come forward to protect them owing to lacunas in the existing forest laws,” Allauddin Khan said.

The president of the forest owners association said that the government in 1993 imposed a ban on all sorts of cutting of trees/ forests which enhanced timber smuggling and caused huge financial losses to the government in terms of Revenue.