[Today, Khan is Pakistan’s prime minister, and his new government is aiming to replicate that success nationwide, this time with a “10 Billion Tree Tsunami.” Officials said they hope the initiative, launched last month, will foster environmental awareness in their impoverished, drought-plagued country, where both greed and necessity have left forests stripped; they now cover only 2 percent of all land, according to the World Bank.]
By Pamela Constable
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Young
trees planted as part of a Pakistani government reforestation campaign stand
among older
ones along the hilly road between Islamabad and Khyber-
Pakhtunkhwa province.
(Pamela Constable/The Washington Post)
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HARIPUR,
Pakistan — When Mohammed
Riasat, a government forest service officer, peers up at the majestic ridges
around him, he sees small miracles others might miss: a few dozen pine
seedlings that have sprouted in rocky, near-vertical cliffs or a grove of healthy
young eucalyptus trees, planted on a patch of terrain that had been eroding
after years of illegal use.
“When I see a grown tree cut down, I feel
like a close relative has died,” said Riasat, who has spent three decades
working with limited funds and staff to protect Pakistan’s beleaguered forests
here in the verdant hills of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province. “When I see a new one
appear, I feel attached to it.”
Two years ago, that struggling effort got a
huge boost. Imran Khan, then a politician whose party governed the province,
launched a program dubbed the “Billion Tree Tsunami.” Eventually, hundreds of
thousands of trees were planted across the region, timber smuggling was
virtually wiped out, and a cottage industry of backyard nurseries flourished.
Today, Khan is Pakistan’s prime minister, and
his new government is aiming to replicate that success nationwide, this time
with a “10 Billion Tree Tsunami.” Officials said they hope the initiative,
launched last month, will foster environmental awareness in their impoverished,
drought-plagued country, where both greed and necessity have left forests
stripped; they now cover only 2 percent of all land, according to the World
Bank.
The plan is one of dozens that Khan has
proposed in his wide-ranging agenda to fashion a “new” Pakistan. Some have met
with skepticism, such as persuading wealthy overseas Pakistanis to finance the
construction of dams and vowing to end entrenched official corruption.
But the idea of a green awakening seems to be
taking root. The new program is expected to make enemies, especially powerful
individuals and groups that have appropriated large tracts of government land
for years. But the concept appeals to a new generation of better-educated
Pakistanis, and it has sparked excitement on social media.
“This is one of the rare things in our
society that is not divisive,” said Malik Alim Aslam, the new federal minister
for climate change, who headed the original campaign in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. On
Sept. 2, when the government held 200 launch ceremonies across the country,
enthusiastic citizens helped plant 2.5 million saplings in one day.
But experts said Pakistan will need more than
a trillion new pines, cedars and eucalyptus trees to reverse decades of
deforestation. It is even harder, they noted, to protect public forests from
human predation, which is often hidden from view and hazardous to combat.
Culprits include timber rustlers, villagers who let cattle forage freely and
developers who raze acres of forested land.
During the pilot project in
Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, officials hired local residents as forest guards, but 10 of
them were killed trying to stop encroachers. And when an observant citizen
repeatedly reported illegal logging in an obscure area of the province, local
officials did nothing. Finally, provincial leaders fired every employee of the
forest service administration.
“It was a signal of zero tolerance, and it
sent shock waves across the government,” Aslam said.
The bold move also encouraged a budding
environmental movement. One small victory occurred recently in Swat, a
once-bucolic region in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa that has suffered from years of
deforestation and a takeover by Taliban militants. When local officials began
cutting down trees to widen a road, protesters blocked it. Then Khan’s new
government stepped in, and half of the trees were spared.
Several activists said the message was also
beginning to change traditional habits that damage the environment. In one
mountainous area, they said, some residents are planning to relocate to towns
in the winter rather than chop down trees to heat their hillside homes.
“Everyone is waking up and starting to
plant,” said Hazrat Maaz, a lawyer and environmentalist in Swat. He said he was
“especially happy” to see one elderly man preventing sheep from grazing in an
area of newly planted trees.
During a drive last month along steep,
winding roads linking the capital, Islamabad, with Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Riasat
pointed out acres of two-year-old pines and eucalyptus trees, as well as newly
protected forest areas where dozens of tiny pine saplings had taken root
spontaneously.
Every few miles, large green signs promoting
the Billion Tree Tsunami had been erected, listing how many acres had been
planted. One, however, stood next to a freshly bulldozed road and chopped-off
cliff where pines clung by their exposed roots. A site supervisor said the land
had been purchased to build a restaurant for tourists.
Riasat said such commercial arrangements are
permitted in that area. But on protected land, he said, the community caretaker
program has improved security by educating transgressors and imposing penalties
if they persist.
“Before this campaign, people who wanted to
build a house or graze their cattle just went into the woods. Now that has been
stopped,” Riasat said. Even some former timber rustlers, he said, have started
growing and selling trees. “We used to go after them, but now they come to us
for advice,” he said.
Aslam said he has no illusions that planting
and protecting billions of trees across Pakistan will happen cheaply or
quickly. One obstacle will be forcing powerful people off public land they have
long occupied; another is that two of Pakistan’s four provinces are dominated
by political parties that are rivals of Khan’s Movement for Justice and are
less likely to cooperate.
“The challenge is going to be much bigger
this time,” Aslam said. “About 40 percent of fertile public land has been
encroached by land-grabbers, including some lawmakers. There will be a lot of
blowback, but we have strong political commitment. We will enforce the law.”
In communities along the road to Haripur,
residents seemed supportive of the campaign. Some noted the economic link
between environmental preservation and tourism. Others said Khan’s provincial
program had spurred them to support his party in the recent national elections.
“All the beauty of the environment here is
due to forests, and no one should be allowed to touch them,” said Mohammed
Qayoum, 50, a retired schoolteacher in the town of Pir Sohawa. “For years, the
officials never came to check on them, or they made deals to cut down trees.
But in these past five years, that has all changed.”
Twenty miles farther on, several residents of
Boddla village said they had benefited when the government planted acres of
eucalyptus trees there in 2016. Some earned cash as laborers; others raised
saplings for a small profit. They are forbidden to let their livestock roam
among the new trees, so they now tie the animals in their yards.
“When things are green, it is a benefit for
everyone,” said Khanan, a villager in his late 50s. Outside his mud-walled
farmhouse, a cow and two goats were tethered under a thatch. “God will have
mercy on this work,” he said.
Haq Nawaz Khan contributed to this report.
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