KARACHI, Aug 2: Rampant deforestation for commercial and agriculture purposes over the past decades has drastically reduced the forest cover in Sindh. As a result, a substantial forest area is without forest stock though official records still show the land denuded of trees as forests. Large-scale deforestation has increased poverty while climate change scene is also worsening with each passing day.

The forest lease policy 2005 has failed to meet its objectives and it is assumed that 99 per cent lease-holders are not complying with the lease contract stipulations. Also, there are no national or provincial guidelines to attain certain targets every year.

These facts were highlighted at a seminar on conservation of forestry resources organised by the Sindh forest department at a local hotel on Saturday.

Presenting an overview of forestry in Sindh, Riaz Ahmed Wagan, conservator of forests, said the total forest area in Sindh was 2.78 million acres, which was eight per cent of the total land areas in Sindh. Ideally, forest cover should be 20pc to 25pc, he added.

After independence, he said, a system was introduced to cut forests to meet the requirements of mining industry in Balochistan and other parts of the country while mangroves spread over 0.344 million hectares were declared protected in 1958. The same status was given to rangelands spread over 0.457 million hectares. However, in the early 1960s, about 3,1924 acres of reserved forest land was allotted to military and civil bureaucrats.

“During the past 60 years, 35,000 acres were illegally allotted, but the land status has not changed. The forest department has been making constant efforts to recover the land and over 300 cases concerning such issues are pending in court,” he said, stressing the need for GIS (Geographic Information System) mapping to determine the actual area with forests.

Identifying the threats to forests, especially riverine forests, he said this included the reduced frequency and intensity of floods due to construction of dams and barrages in the upstream, overexploitation to generate revenue and to meet local wood demand, population pressure, poverty and land hunger and lesser funding for the protection and sustainable management of forests.

Giving a glimpse of the present situation, Aijaz A. Nizamani, project director of the Sindh Forestry Development Project, said that today a substantial forest area was without forest stock; deforestation had made people poorer; there had been increased incidence of forest land occupation; forest officials’ morale was down and they faced various job-related stresses; quality of soils had degraded and above all there had been a visible change in climatic conditions.

“Sustainable forest management is the need of the hour. To achieve this objective, the government has to work in partnership with locals and the private sector. The forest lease policy 2005 needs amendments as it has failed to meet its objectives,” he said, adding that the government should offer incentives to people to encourage forest-raising and conservation.

Talking about the status of mangroves, Najmuddin Vistro said that the mangrove cover had shrunk from 260,000 hectares in 1983 to 73,000 in 2000. Though the forest department with some NGOs had taken an initiative to rehabilitate mangroves, the jungles of the Indus delta were still under high risk.

“This is because no substantial effort has ever been made to counter the many threats these mangroves face. Along with other factors, the government needs to prepare a policy framework to address the root-causes threatening mangroves’ existence.”

Highlighting the various threats mangroves face in Keti Bunder, Rab Nawaz of the WWF said that a recent survey of the areas showed a marked decline in the density of these mangroves and it appeared that no regeneration was taking place due to the reduced flow of freshwater that had quickened the pace of sea intrusion.

Talking to journalists at the end of the inaugural session, the chief guest, Sindh Minister for Home and Forests Dr Zulfiqar Ali Mirza, vowed to recover forest land and said that the process had been initiated. “The government is updating lists to recover forest land which has been awarded to certain landlords during the past government,” he said, adding that vast tracts of forest land had already been recovered in Thatta and Larkana.