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ILLEGAL forest cutting amounted to millions feet during previous and present NWFP governments as 155,000 hectare forest land was declassified as non-forest countrywide and used for different purposes, Minister for Environment, Hamidullah Jan Afridi informed National Assembly.

Referring to worrisome situation emerging out of faulty 1992 Forest Policy and illegal forests cutting by the mafia, the minister said, 6.5 million feet wood was cut only from Kohistan area during MMA government and the present government in NWFP.

“Still five million feet additional wood, cut illegally, is lying with mafia, who are manoeuvering for some nod from the authorities to get it cleared,” he said in response to a point raised by MNAs Fauzia Wahab, Shamshad Sattar Bachani, Mian Marghoob Ahmed, Abdul Qadir Patel, Yasmeen Rehman, Hanif Abbasi and Afzam Khokhar.

The members had raised concerns on depleting forest covered area and massive wood cutting, warning the government of climate change and other calamities if this trend continues and concrete action is not taken to curb it.

They had also recommended tree plantation along canals and roadside and urged the government to ensure that environment should not be damaged in the name of development. “Let them plant five times more trees than what they cut for development projects, fuel, housing colonies and other purposes.”

He said under the 1992 Policy, forest wood cutting was totally banned, but the MMA government legalized the cutting of dried and fallen trees. “This permission was misused by mafia and they also started cutting green wood. The wood cut this way is dumped at some place and then gradually, authorities are persuaded to legalize it.” The present government in NWFP is pursuing the same policy and trees continue to be cut, the minister said, adding, non- availability of alternate energy resource is another reason for massive pressure on our forests in NWFP, Northern Areas and Azad Kashmir.

He said the government is working on a strategy to confiscate illegally cut wood, and once we do it, it would discourage the mafia.The minister said, out of 155,000 hectare forest land, declassified as non-forest land has been used by the Armed Forces, Housing colonies and for the agriculture purposes.

“I acknowledge the population pressure, but it does not mean that we destroy our forests and shrink forest covered area,” he said.“We are signatory to number of international convention and have to increase forest area to eight per cent of total land by 2015. To do this, we shall have to plant trees on one million hectare additional land,” Afridi said.

He said only the Balochistan government withdrew 5544 hectare forest land from Air Force and “this is appreciable decision.” He said Environment Ministry is working on new Forest Policy in consultation with all stakeholders and it would soon be presented to the Cabinet for approval.The minister informed the House that project worth Rs 13 billion are in pipeline for forestry sector, including protection and enhance the mangrove cover area along our coastline.

Afridi said, still there is no effective monitoring system to preserve our forests and control illegal cutting.“We shall also put in place such a system through new policy and performance based rewards would be given to provinces, AJK and Northern Areas” he said. Replying to a question by a member regarding forest cover in India, the minister said, India has forests on 24% of its total land. “Here the forestry is a provincial subject, but in India they have put it on concurrent list and federal government directly take care of forests.”