Federal govt’s forestation drive: Another billion trees to be planted in KP

PESHAWAR: Claiming to have achieved the target of billion tree afforestation project, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Environment Department is all set to launch a new campaign as the federal government announced 10 billion tree tsunami in which one billion more trees would be planted and regenerated in the province and its newly merged tribal districts.

Homework for the new project has already been completed and it would be formally kicked off from the next month, a senior official in the forest department told The News. The new project would cost Rs27 billion approximately for which the funds have been approved.The drive would be started simultaneously in all the districts of the province including the newly merged tribal districts.

The same mechanism like the previous one would be adopted for making the drive a success and equal attention would be focused on planting more and more trees besides ensuring natural re-generation.However, this year the concept of nurseries has been revisited and the quota for private entities has been abolished.

Only women would be given 10 percent quota for developing saplings and the remaining would be done by the department, the official said. "The quota for women has been retained for two obvious reasons. First, they were found extremely punctual and dedicated to their job and they did it tremendously well. Second, the government believes in women empowerment.