Ministry coordinates with provinces to protect forests from fire incidents

Islamabad : The climate change ministry has approached the provincial authorities to help protect forest cover that is currently under threat due to fire incidents in various parts of the country.

According to the details, the ministry is going to announce a Central Coordination Centre that would mainly focus on developing a comprehensive strategy to mitigate the effects of climate change, protecting green areas and forest cover, preventing future events similar to the Shishper Glacier, and removing food and water shortages in the country.

A massive forest fire has been raging for the last twelve days in different parts of the Koh-e-Suleiman mountains with three people reported dead as provincial and federal disaster management authorities are still struggling to douse the flames.

The loss of forest cover due to this fire has become a matter of grave concern for all stakeholders. Now the climate change ministry is in the process to establish strong coordination with the provincial authorities and formulate a roadmap to deal with these kinds of issues in the future.

An official said the rising challenges have underlined the need to make effective coordination with the provincial governments to cope with the negative impacts of climate change and protect green cover in the country. He said the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) helped develop the first forest fire control system in Pakistan in 2018 and it handed it over to the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government with an aim to help control fire incidents in natural forests.

“We have also directed the Islamabad Wildlife Management Board (IWMB) to establish a Fire Control Room and take all-out measures to avoid fire incidents in protected Margalla Hills National Park,” he said.