CM for creating forest blocks in Karachi, Hyderabad

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has ordered the forest department to develop two blocks of forests each spreading over an area of 10,000 acres near Karachi and Hyderabad to control environmental pollution and improve overall environmental conditions in both cities of the province.

He issued these directives while presiding over a meeting of the forest department at the Chief Minister House, said a statement on Friday. The meeting was attended by Chief Secretary Rizwan Memon, Principal Secretary to CM Sohail Rajput, Forest and Wildlife Secretary Asif Hyder Shah, chief conservators and other officers concerned.

The chief minister said that lands of the forest department were lying barren near Karachi and Hyderabad and the cities were facing environmental pollution and that was why two separate blocks of forests may be developed near them, he said.

He added that each block must be spread over an area of 10,000 acres and they should be watered through the drip irrigation system. Giving presentation to the chief minister, forest secretary Asif Hyder Shah said that the total forest land in the province was 3.3 million acres, or 10 per cent of Sindh’s surface area.

He showed a base map of 140,914 square kilometres of forests which include irrigation plantation over 202,622 acres, riverine forests over 595,511 acres, range lands over 1,129,000 acres and mangroves on 1,500,000 acres.

Talking about the achievements of the department, he said mangroves had been planted over an area of 175,000 acres during the last five years. “We broke the Guinness World Record of planting trees in one day in 2009 and again set a new record by planting 847,275 trees in 2013.”

On this, the chief minister gave him the new target of planting one million mangroves in March. “I will personally launch the drive on March 23,” he said. Giving details of major achievements of the forest department during 2017-18, the forest secretary said that 21,000 acres or 8.92 million mangrove plants were planted in six months, another 21,000 would be planted in June 2018 and in order to protect the new plants a community watch and ward system had been developed.

He added that natural regeneration of about 180 to 200 million plants had been made. The chief minister was told that riverine forests over 5,000 acres or 100 million seeds had been broadcasted.

New plantation has been made over 1,000 acres with 700,000 plants, and 12 million container plants in the nurseries have also been developed. The forest department has also carried out linear plantation over an area of 400 kilometres.

The chief minister directed the forest secretary to issue notices to the lessees who have violated lease conditions. He also directed him to remove encroachments from the forest land.