Farmers to be given 400,000 saplings

Rawalpindi : District Range Forest officer of Punjab Forest Department Rawalpindi (Extension) Sher Afzal Raja Sunday said the district office of range forest Chakwal will distribute 0.4 million saplings to the farming community.

He appealed to the farmers to resettle their barren lands through afforestation and announced that the forest department would provide them saplings at the cheapest rate of Rs2 per seedling.

“They would plant these saplings in their barren lands and forest department shall help them grow these saplings in a proper way,” he said and added that millions of these plants would be given to farmers in all districts and tehsils of the division.

He further said that practical measures have also been taken to expand the forests on the lands owned by the department and to protect the existing forests, which has led to a massive increase in the forest area for the first time.

“Only in Chakwal District of Rawalpindi Division, 5000 kanal land has so far been turned into the dense forest,” he added.

“Along with these practical and immediate steps, we are also raising public awareness to highlight the need and importance of trees for which a massive publicity campaign has been launched,” he said.