Ahmed Khan Malik

The Sindh government has planned a forest sector strategy to maximize socioeconomic benefits for the local population as well as the provincial economy, reports WealthPK.

“Trees are traditionally valued for their tangible benefits like timber, firewood and forage. In addition, they also boast intangible or non-marketed benefits, including the contribution of trees towards carbon offsetting (a process through which forests and trees absorb and store carbon and release oxygen into the atmosphere), said Amjad Ali Shah, Divisional Director of Forest Department, Sindh while talking to WealthPK.

This strategy has been formulated in consideration of non-tangible benefits. Sindh has meagre forest resources, prone to encroachment and deforestation due to excessive pressures emanating from the rapid population growth, fuelwood consumption, construction, timber needs (legitimate and illegitimate), conflicts and disputes. Scientific planning and sound management of natural resources is the need of the hour and surveys constitute an integral component of forest management conducted by the Sindh Forest Department, he said. He added that this would ensure that the entire forest area was properly demarcated and cross referenced, hence pre-emotively ensuring timely identification of encroachment, if any, and initiating actions for early ejectment accordingly.

Climatically, Sindh falls under the dry sub-tropical area characterized by low rainfall and hot climate. The province is typically divided into three regions i.e. the rocky area in the west, the sandy desert area in the east and a central irrigated area bisected by the Indus River.  After agriculture, forestry is an important land-use comprising riverine forests along the Indus, irrigated plantations in the command area of Guddu, Sukkur and Kotri Barrage irrigation systems, rangelands in Thar and Kohistan areas and mangrove forests along the coastline. He said the Sindh Forest Department managed 8% of the province’s total area.

However, only 2.29% of the area with riverine forests and irrigated plantations were categorized as “productive forests”. “This clearly indicates that the province is deficient in forestry resources,” he said, adding that the remaining area consist of mangrove forests and rangelands, which were classified as “protective forests”. He noted that forestlands are precious and as open property are subjected to threats such as, encroachment, boundary alteration, illegal allotments, false litigations. A number of forests are at the risk of encroachment because their boundaries are not marked, giving leeway to the neighbouring communities to grab the precious land.

The permanent boundary pillars of reserved forests have been demolished and become invisible, needing re-fixing after proper demarcation. In order to have peace and security, it is important to have the boundary limits. This can only be achieved if the boundaries are clearly demarcated, surveyed and mapped. The strategy is mainly conceived to survey boundary demarcation and fix monoliths in riverine & inland forests and rangelands of Sindh. The justification for such a strategy in Sindh is the need of the hour to address serious problems of deforestation and degradation of the forestry resources and combat desertification,” Shah added.

Credit: INP-WealthPk