‘60pc rangeland can be converted into forest area’

Islamabad : Approximately sixty percent of rangeland can be converted into natural forest areas under the Ten Billion Trees Tsunami Programme being implemented all over the country.

According to the working paper prepared by the climate change ministry, rangelands available in Pakistan are conducive to agroforestry but not all of them can be used for this purpose because various animal species depend on these lands for their survival.

The surveys showed that ten percent of these rangelands can easily be converted because there are no animal species that get food from these areas.

The working papers revealed that some more studies would help get to know how much more areas of rangelands can be converted into forest areas without causing any kind of harm to the animal species.

It pointed out that there is a need to be aware the rangeland-dependent communities about the key concepts like climate change, global warming, and desertification and their negative impacts on the rangeland productivity and functions.

An official said, “The use of Geographic Information System (GIS) and remote sensing will be introduced to know the extent and condition of the rangeland with a given time-frame, for monitoring moisture fluctuations and forage quantity and vegetation cover.”

Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam has said, “We never want to cause any kind of harm to animal species that depend on rangelands. But we are in a process to identify those parts of rangelands that can easily be converted into natural forest areas.”

“Initially, we are evaluating the proposal to convert only ten percent of the total area of rangeland into forest area but it still needs more input from the relevant departments,” he said.