‘Arid land restoration to alleviate poverty’

LAHORE: Almost 78 percent of Pakistan's land is classified as drylands, which is the highest across the world and their restoration will allow the country to ensure water security and reverse climate change.

This was claimed by Ahsan Rashid, Chief Executive Officer of Combating Poverty and Climate Change Foundation (CPCCF) in a media workshop held for environmental journalists here Thursday at Lahore Gymkhana Club.

He said, “Pakistan is the most water-challenged country of the world and it should provide leadership in working towards restoring drylands to alleviate poverty. Ahsan informed that CPCCF had signed an MOU with the Cholistan University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (CUVAS) to collaborate on a three-year pilot project for creating a scalable model for sustainable development of drylands located within the Punjab. In this regard, 100 acres of land on CUVAS campus in Bahawalpur have been identified for the project.

A recent pilot project conducted by CPCCF in association with the University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Lahore (UVAS) has found that grazing of sheep under the rules of “Holistic Planned Grazing”, has doubled land productivity of the pasture on which the animals were grazed, within the initial 14 months of establishing the pasture. Furthermore, there was 75 percent reduction in feed cost per animal and 20 percent increase in daily weight gain of lambs born on the pasture as compared to the prior norm.