Only 5.2% of Pakistan forested: Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is poorly endowed with forests, with forested area at a mere 5.2 percent of the total, with an annual deforestation rate of 2.1. The country’s forest resources are not only important for environmental services but also immensely important for locals and their livelihood.

Dr Babar Shahbaz, visiting research fellow at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) and a professor at the University of Agriculture, Riaz Ahmed of the Sungi Development Foundation and SDPI Project Coordinator Maqsood Jan expressed these views at ‘Dilemmas in Participatory Forest Management in NWFP – Research Insight’, a seminar organised by the SDPI on Monday. Addressing the gathering, SDPI’s Talimand Khan said forest management had been a dilemma since partition, with the forest department was still clinging to its colonial command-and-control structure, shifting responsibility to local communities without exercising its authority.

Maqsood Jan gave a brief introduction of the NCCR Pakistan Research Group, which is a partner of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research North-South (NCCR N-S), financially supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), the Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC) and Swiss universities.

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