KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has directed forest department to start linear plantation and urban forestry by planting trees on roads, canals and strategic installations because our cities have become heat islands and need effective massive planting.
This he said while presiding over a meeting at CM House on Tuesday to review performance of the forest department. The meeting was attended by Chief Secretary Major (retd) Azam Suleman, Chairman PandD Mohammad Waseem, Additional Chief Secretary (ACF) Forest Sohail Akbar Shah, Principal Secretary to CM Sohail Rajput, Secretary Finance Noor Alam and other officers.
The chief minister said that their cities had become heat island; therefore, there was a dire need to launch effective massive tree plantation drive. The ACS Forest briefed the chief minister on the performance of his department. He said: “Out of 123,478.54 acres of encroached land, he has vacated 17,186.5 acres of forest land and he still has to vacate 106,292.04 acres.”
He pointed out that most of the illegal encroachment cases of forest land were under litigation. At this, the chief minister directed him to start raising forests on the vacated land and pursue the cases in the court so that land could be retrieved from the encroachers.
The chief minister was told that the forest department had generated Rs 240 million from agro forestry leases, sale of wood material and minor forest produce etc. It was also pointed out that 64,497.62 acres of forest land has illegally been allotted in Hyderabad, Karachi, Sukkur, Thatta, Dadu, Larkana, Kandhkot, Khipro, Khairpur, Mirpur Mathelo and Tando Mohammad Khan. At this, the chief minister directed ACS forest to cancel the allotments by fulfilling legal formalities.
Talking about achievement, Sohail Akbar Shah said that the forest department had developed new forests on 3000 acres through regeneration in riverine area. New plantation has been made on an area of 828 acres.
The other achievements include conservation and management of Indus delta mangroves on 25,000 acres, establishment of linear plantation on 400 km, raising of 4.535 million container plants, distribution of 8.911 million saplings till June 2018 and another 9 million saplings during the monsoon and setting up new Guinness World Record of planting 1,129,294 mangroves plants in one day on April 19, 2018.
The meeting was told that Range Lands comprising around 1.129 million acres, located in desert and Kohistan areas, are dependent on rainfall. “Mangrove forests are located along the coastal line of Karachi, Thatta and Badin districts. They are environmentally, ecologically and economically important. Their dependence for growth and stability is on the receipt of fresh water below Kotri Barrage and sediment load. It is about 1.5 million acres.”