‘Forests provide best shield against climate risks’

Islamabad: Federal climate change minister Mushahidullah Khan on Tuesday said the government was making all-out efforts to boost the country’s climate resilience by re-vitalising the forestry sector.

“We cannot protect the country from devastating impacts of global warming-induced climate change, as long as our forests continue to remain chopped down. Forests are the best way to achieve enhanced climate resilience against fall-outs of the climate change impacts,” he told a national consultative meeting on the World Bank-funded programme called REED+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) here at a local hotel.

The event was attended by forest experts from different countries and from different parts of the country, who discussed various technical and policy options to boost country’s tree cover as a part of the country’s climate resilience efforts.

The REDD+ is a UN-led mechanism that aims for countries’ efforts to reduce heat trapping carbon emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and foster conservation, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks.

The minister told participants that international studies show that deforestation and land degradation accounts for a major share in overall global carbon emissions annually.

“Most people assume that global warming is caused by burning oil, gas and coal. But in fact between 25 and 30 per cent of the greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere each year or estimated 1.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide – is caused by deforestation, mainly the cutting and burning of forests, every year.

However, the same amount of carbon climate-altering carbon dioxide gases released from fossil fuel burning through any source can be removed from the atmosphere to stabilize the climate change by halting deforestation, he underlined.

Quoting studies of the UN’s Food and Agriculture (FAO), the minister said trees were 50 percent carbon but when they were chopped down or burned, the carbon dioxide they stored made its way back into the air. “Around 13 million hectares of forests worldwide are lost annually, almost entirely in the tropics, most of it occurs in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia,” he said.

The minister told participants that an ambitious World Bank-funded $3.8 million REDD+ programme had already been launched in the country that would help forest owners to access money for forest protection and controlling their shrinkage.

He said a lack of access to energy for cooking and heating in households, illegal tree cutting, population growth and associated wood demand surge, changes in land cover for non-forestry
uses, land erosion and degradation were among major causes of deforestation in the country.

“Controlling deforestation in the country is not possible without increasing access to renewable and alternative energy sources, particularly for cooking and heating in households, reducing occurrence of land erosion and landslides by strengthening forested mountain slopes with vegetation cover and increasing public awareness about positive effects of forests on overall environment, human health and biodiversity.”

The minister urged the provincial and federal representatives of the forest departments to join the climate change ministry’s efforts for implanting national forest policy that aims to halt deforestation and inject new life in the ailing forestry sector.

He said the involvement of local and indigenous forest community, community-based organizations, and educational institutions are key to bringing new life into the country’s unwell forestry sector.