PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa forestry and wildlife department’s plans to manage forests in the province along scientific lines have got off the ground after remaining on the back-burner for three decades.

Officials told Dawn that as the first task under the scientific forest management project, the department would clear the “dead, dying, diseased or wind-felled” trees from forests in the province.

They said the department didn’t regularly remove such trees fearing that social media would promote wrong impressions about the exercise.

The officials said some social media users even showed the “legitimate felling of trees as the handiwork of timber mafia.”

Official says initiative must for sustainable production of timber, firewood

“As per the working plan estimates, the annual commercial yield from the forests of Hazara and Malakand areas is 11.5 million cubic feet with a minimum price of Rs17 billion annually,” conservator (forest) in the lower Hazara division Mohammad Yousaf Khan told Dawn.

He said on average, 70 per cent of the money went to people as forest royalties and the rest to the government.

“We are implementing this initiative under the approved working plan separately chalked out for each forest in the province,” he said.

The official said KP’s annual forest-related losses since 1993 totalled Rs17 billion.

He said scientific forest management was necessary for sustainable production of timber, firewood and other minor forest production, while it was also important for the better health and hygiene of the forest to reduce the fire hazards and flood disasters.

The conservator said initially, the scientific management of forests was banned in 1993 as two years were required to enhance the capacity of the forest department personnel as well as organisational structure and mechanised harvesting.

He, however, said the ban was extended to 22 years and stayed in place until 2015 due to the “pressure” from organisations working against deforestation in the country.

“With this harvesting of such timber will not only improve the health and hygiene of the forest but will also enhance its production,” he said.

About the implementation of scientific forest management, the official said the department would remove dead, dying and diseased trees before starting the thinning of the dense trees to provide them space and open it for better growth.

He said matured and over matured trees would be removed as per yield of the forest.

“The dead, dying and diseased trees have caused fire hazard that wasevident from the enhanced fire phenomena since 1992. They also spread diseases in healthy trees by providing nourishment to pests and fungi,” he said.

The official said the province produced the best quality timber in the world, including deodar, kail, fir/spruce and chir, which all were softwood timber of pine species.

He added that KP produced quality timber of hardwood species, including shisham, walnut, oak and ash (sum).

“By not implementing the scientific forest management project since 1993, 11.5 million cubic feet of timber has been dying in the forest every year. That rots at the same rate. Currently, we can extract 55 million cubic feet of timber in the category of dead and dying trees,” he said.

The official said only in the Malakand region, 80 forests were mature and over mature and they were located at Badgoi area of Upper Dir district, Ursoon, Urandoo and Kalash areas of Chitral district, and Gornai area of Swat district.

He said the old and aged forest was also located in Gantar forest of Battagram, Bata Kundi forest of Mansehra and Donga Gali and Tandyani forest of Abbottabad.

“The economic life of deodar, kail and deodar is 100 years and that of shisham and chir 60 years. However, the majority of Deodar, Kail and Fur in our forest is more than 200-year-old and chir and shisham over 100-year-old. Tree mortality rate in our forests is extraordinarily higher than the normal mortality,” he said.

Published in Dawn, May 14th, 2023