Main constraint for forestry in Pakistan

Forests are provider of various environmental functions in terms of soil, water, biodiversity, climate and financial benefits to us. Environmental functions of forests to conserve soil and water are of special importance to small islands because of the relatively high ratio of coastline to land area, narrow distances between uplands and coastal areas, and limited size of watersheds. The forests are also important for biodiversity conservation, since small island generally have a high percentage of endemic species(of which many are found in forests).

In recent years the importance of environmental protection has been brought to the forefront of Chinese policy making. As a result, new policies have been drafted affecting many different aspects of environmental protection in China. China’s Natural Forest Conservation Program (NFCP) is one such response directed at forest conservation and has the potential to have huge impacts on the extent and well being of forests in Sichuan. This program has called for a number of features that will help prevent environmental degradation including a ban on logging and massive reforestation programs. In Pakistan there are several NGOs (e.g WWF, IUCN, UNDP,UNEP) and GOs(EPA) which are working to prevent the destruction of Forest ecosystems.

These organizations are working from several years but the forest ecosystems are declining day by day. What is reason behind this?One of the main reason for the destruction of forest ecosystems is ILLEGAL LOGGING along with worn out law THE FOREST ACT, 1927 (Act XVI of 1927). In any national policy of Pakistan the forestry sector was neglected either partially or completely. I have quoted one good example from China at the beginning of the article. If we want to revolutionize forestry sector in our country we have to make up-to-date amendments in this ACT and effective implementation of law and order for this sector like China did.