Ten billion trees planted by 2023. This is the ambitious project of the “Ten Billion Tree Tsunami Programme,” launched in 2019 byPakistan’s Prime Minister, Imran Khan.
The first phase aims to plant 3.25 billion trees in the country, at an estimated cost of about PKR105 billion (about US$680 million). The program also aims to preserve mangroves, reforest cities and create more than 5,500 green jobs.
This reforestation project is part of a similar approach to the “Billion Tree Tsunami” launched in 2014 by the previous Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, which aimed to plant one billion trees across the country.
Meanwhile, another WWF Pakistan-supported project launched in 2018 has planted nearly 1.6 million native species trees across different cities in Pakistan, along with about a billion native plants.
According to the 2021 Global Climate Risk Index, Pakistan ranks eighth among countries most affected by climate change between 1999 and 2019, with economic losses equivalent to US$3.772 billion.
Extreme heat waves, high humidity and flooding are just some of the effects faced by Pakistan, due to the melting of Himalayan glaciers. This has also caused severe water shortages in much of the country, as well as the gradual disappearance of riparian forests.
Between 2000 and 2010, the country lost an average of 43,000 hectares of forest per year, about half the area of its capital, Islamabad.
Its forest currently covers about 4.478 million hectares (5.1%), according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). This is a very small share when you consider that the world’s forest cover is 4.06 billion hectares (about 31% of the total land area).
This year’s World Environment Day will also mark the opening of the United Nations Decade on Ecosystems Restoration 2021-2030. The year 2030 was chosen based on the deadline set by scientists to avoid the amplification of the effects of climate change.
“2020 was a year of reckoning, facing multiple crises, including a global pandemic and the continued crises of climate, nature and pollution. In 2021, we must take deliberate steps to move from crisis to healing. In so doing, we must recognise that the restoration of nature is imperative to the survival of our planet and the human race,” outlined Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme.