Monday, February 25, 2019

Satellite Image Shows Pakistan Among World's Fastest Greening Countries

Satellite images provided by the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) show that greenery in Pakistan has been growing at double digit rates over the last few decades. All of this rapid greening of the country is the result of intensive agriculture in Punjab and Sindh provinces.

Greening Trends in Asia. Source: NASA Earth Observatory

“China and India account for one-third of the greening, but contain only 9 percent of the planet’s land area covered in vegetation,” said Chi Chen, the lead author of a study he did with Ranga Myneni at Boston University. “That is a surprising finding, considering the general notion of land degradation in populous countries from overexploitation.”

The Boston University research team found that "global green leaf area has increased by 5 percent since the early 2000s, an area equivalent to all of the Amazon rainforests. At least 25 percent of that gain came in China. Overall, one-third of Earth’s vegetated lands are greening, while 5 percent are growing browner. The study was published on February 11, 2019, in the journal Nature Sustainability", according to NASA Earth Observatory.

Pakistan's arable land grew by about 600,000 hectares between 2014 and 2016, according to Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).  It increased from 36,252,000 hectares to 36,844,000 hectares. However, Pakistan has experienced deforestation in this period.  The area under forests has shrunk from 1,515,000 hectares in 2014 to 1.429,000 hectares in 2016.

Two years ago, Prime Minister Imran Khan, then a politician whose party governed the Khyber PakhtunKhwa (KP) province, launched a program called 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, according to Washington Post.  Now, the PTI government led by Prime Minister Imran Khan, is aiming to replicate that success nationwide with a “10 Billion Tree Tsunami.”

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

South Asia Investor Review

Bumper Crops in Pakistan

Billion Tree Tsunami

Value Added Agriculture in Pakistan

Agribusiness Drawing Investors to Pakistan

China Pakistan Economic Corridor

An Indian Farmer Commits Suicide Every 30 Minutes

Pakistan's Rural Economy

Pakistan World's 5th Largest Motorcycle Market

The Other 99% of the Pakistan Story



13 comments:

Baloch said...

Pakistan will be green when 99% of Balochistan will be green.

Riaz Haq said...

Baloch: "Pakistan will be green when 99% of Balochistan will be green."

It's neither likely nor advisable to change the basic character and diminish natural beauty of Balochistan.

Chandan said...

Pakistan is in a state of rapid deforestation for a long time. On the other hand India and China have gained forest cover.

1990 to 2000 to 2005 in million hectares:

2.5 to 2.1 to 1.9. Pakistan
63.9 to 65.5 to 65.7 India

Ahmad F. said...

Wow. I am impressed. But where is the water going to come from to irrigate these trees? Pakistan is a water shortage country.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/07/pakistan-s-billion-tree-tsunami-is-astonishing/

Pakistan hit its billion tree goal in August 2017 – months ahead of schedule. Now, the hills of the country’s northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are alive with newly planted saplings.

The massive reforestation project – named the Billion Tree Tsunami – added 350,000 hectares of trees both by planting and natural regeneration, in an effort to restore the province’s depleted forests and fight the effects of climate change.

Decades of felling and natural disasters have drastically reduced Pakistan’s forests. Figures for the country’s total forest cover range between around 2% and 5% of land area. Nevertheless, Pakistan has one of the lowest levels of forest cover in the region and well below the 12% recommended by the UN.

Riaz Haq said...

Ahmad: "Wow. I am impressed. But where is the water going to come from to irrigate these trees? Pakistan is a water shortage country. "

Make it rain: Planting forests could help drought-stricken regions.
Growing trees take water from the soil and release it into the atmosphere. Tree leaves also act as interceptors, catching falling rain, which then evaporates causing rain precipitation elsewhere — a process known as evapo-transpiration.

By better understanding this process, we may, one day, be able to strategically plant trees that will bring rain to regions that need it most, Ellison said. https://forestsnews.cifor.org/10316/make-it-rain-planting-forests-to-help-drought-stricken-regions?fnl=en

Anonymous said...

@Chandan: 2.5 to 2.1 to 1.9. Pakistan from 1990 to 2000 to 2005

And 2016 per RH it is 1.429 million hectares. That is almost 40% of forest or nearly 1 million hectares lost!

Gabriel

nayyer ali said...

Pakistan's geography has very limited forests, mostly in Kashmir and KPK mountain valleys. The overall increase in vegetation around the world is quite marked and is not simply increased agriculture. It is likely the effect of rising CO2 levels in the last few decades that act as a natural fertilizer for all plants. While climate change is a real issue and needs to be addressed, the increase in plant biomass globally is real and substantial.

Riaz Haq said...

#Pakistan’s #Honey Production Up 70% Thanks to #ImranKhan's Billion #trees Project. About 400 tons, about 2% of demand, still imported every year. Tree planting will cut Pak import bill by half in the next 4-5 years. #beekeeping #environment #forests https://propakistani.pk/2020/04/20/pakistans-honey-production-increases-by-70-thanks-to-billion-tree-project/

The production of honey in the country has increased by seventy percent thanks to the plantation of hundreds of thousands of trees under Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Billion Tree project.

The honey production initiative in Changa Manga was started in 2016 when the beehives were auctioned for Rs. 729,000. Now, they cost more than Rs. 1.3 million.

According to the Forest Department’s officials, the complete implementation of the project may increase the amount of auction money from Changa Manga to Rs. 10 million.

Shahid Tabassum, a Forest officer, mentioned that 85 percent of the trees have been planted in the past few years which has led to a remarkable increase in bees.

As for now, there are hundreds of beehives in the Changa Manga forest, he said, highlighting the increase in income from the honey auction.

In the financial year 2016-17, the honey was auctioned for Rs 729,000 and in 2017-18 for Rs1.15 million. Similarly, in 2018-19, the honey was auctioned for Rs 1.252 million, while during the current financial year the auction fetched Rs 1.3 million.

Locals of the forest describe how ruthless deforestation and in the past year and reduction in the green cover reduced the number of beehives quite significantly as honey bees found little to no place to make hives.

Also, the flowers which honey bees use to collect nectar became toxic due to spray of the pesticides, resulting in the deaths of thousands of bees.

This declined the production of natural honey by a significant margin, prompting people to consume processed varieties.

The forest officer informed that there are four types of honey bees currently found in Pakistan; Domna, Pahari, small and European. The first three kinds are local bees while European specie (Apis Mellifera) has been exported from Australia.

The best is the European bee because it produces more honey than others.

Tabassum revealed that a honeybee flies 3.5 million times and travels 50 thousand kilometers to produce half a kilogram of honey.

“Honeybees lay 15,000 eggs a day and 2.5 million in one season. They remember the flower scents while moving around and return with its help after accumulating honey in their stomachs.”

He maintained that about 400 tonnes of honey is imported to Pakistan every year. This is only two percent of the total demand.

Tabassum was hopeful that the tree plantation project will cut Pakistan’s import bill by half in the next four, five years.

Riaz Haq said...

#Pakistan's tree-planting push in Changa Manga Forest has a sweetener: more #honey. Globally, there has been a drastic decline in bee numbers, largely due to intensive agriculture, pesticide use and climate change. #treeplanting #environment
https://www.deccanherald.com/science-and-environment/pakistans-tree-planting-push-has-a-sweetener-more-honey-858076.html @deccanherald

When authorities started planting millions of trees in eastern Pakistan's Changa Manga Forest five years ago, the idea was to bring back life to forest land that had been destroyed by illegal logging, water scarcity and fires. Now that the trees have matured, they are having an even sweeter side-effect - helping to boost the local bee population and honey production in the area. As part of Pakistan's efforts to offset the impacts of climate change by rehabilitating forests, conserving soil and...

Riaz Haq said...

#Pakistan to bring fresh air to cities with 10 billion trees planted using Japanese botanist #Miyawaki's technique. #Lahore urban #forest covers 12.5 acres with over 165,000 plants, expected to grow 10X faster than normal by planting them close together. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/pakistan-seeks-bring-fresh-air-polluted-cities-with-10-billion-trees-2021-08-09/

As Pakistan continues its massive drive to plant 10 billion trees to reduce smog, the country's prime minister urged his citizens to heed the dire warnings in a U.N. climate change report released on Monday.

Prime Minister Imran Khan made the remarks as he inaugurated what officials say is the largest urban Miyawaki forest project in the world. Using a technique pioneered by the late Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki, the forest covers 12.5 acres and has more than 165,000 plants. Officials say the trees are expected to grow 10 times faster than normal due to the Miyawaki technique of planting them close together.

The forest is one of 53 such sites in Lahore that are expected to work as carbon sinks. The city of 10 million has grappled with smog in recent years that has forced schools to close and earned it a ranking among the world's most polluted cities.

"Humans have done such a disservice to God's blessings, to this world, that many things - rising sea levels for instance because of warming and emissions - cannot come back to how they were before," Khan said in the central city of Lahore. "All of us living in the world today, if we do all we can, maybe we can save the world from even worse harm to come."

The U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said Monday that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land. Even the starkest measures to reduce emissions, it said, would not prevent a global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius, and the extreme weather and rising sea levels resulting from that change. read more

Since the tree planting drive started in 2018, the country has 1 billion more trees and is planting another 500 million during the monsoon season.

"If you are concerned about your children and their future, the least you can do is plant one tree and take care of it," Khan said.

Riaz Haq said...

#Pakistan’s 10 billion #trees tsunami across the country. It was started in 2015 by #ImranKhan, now PM. Hundreds of thousands of people across Pakistan are working to nurture and plant 21 species, from the chir pine to the deodar — the national tree. #PTI https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/interactive/2021/pakistan-tree-billion-tsunami-photos/?tid=ss_tw

August marks the beginning of monsoon season in Pakistan, and with the rain comes another busy stretch for the country’s ambitious tree-planting program.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, residents of all stripes, from government officials to Boy Scouts, fan out along the hills. They bring with them chinar tree saplings — which can grow to nearly 100 feet tall — along with other varieties, and they begin digging.

It’s all part of an effort that started in 2015, when Imran Khan — then a provincial politician and now Pakistan’s prime minister — backed a program dubbed a “Billion Tree Tsunami.” The initiative reached its provincewide target in 2018 and was so successful that federal officials expanded the drive nationally in 2019 with a new goal of 10 billion trees — or, the “Ten Billion Tree Tsunami.”

“Everyone is waking up and starting to plant,” lawyer and environmentalist Hazrat Maaz told The Washington Post at the time.

The program addresses Pakistan’s history of deforestation as the country confronts the realities of climate change in the form of hotter temperatures, melting Himalayan glaciers and intensifying monsoon rains.

“It makes us very vulnerable,” Malik Amin Aslam, Pakistan’s federal minister for climate change, said in a recent phone call. He has overseen both the provincial and national planting campaigns. “The cheapest, most effective and quickest way to fight climate change is to plant trees,” he said.

Direct planting, Aslam explained, accounts for about 40 percent of the program’s new trees. Hundreds of thousands of people across Pakistan are working to nurture and plant 21 species, from the chir pine to the deodar — the national tree.

The other 60 percent come from assisted regeneration, in which community members are paid to protect existing forests so that trees can propagate and thrive. Protectors are known as “nighabaan,” and 11 individuals lost their lives fighting the “timber mafia” between 2016 and 2018, according to Aslam.

Whether planted or protected, trees capture and hold carbon dioxide — a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change — and combat erosion on steep landscapes in Pakistan that Aslam says are “almost like living on a slide.”

The latest tree “tsunami” appears to be on pace. The rate of new trees has gone up tenfold since the initiative began, Aslam said. He expects another 500 million trees by the end of this year, with a goal of around 3.2 billion by 2023. If the current ruling party — Movement for Justice — is reelected, the aim is to hit 10 billion trees by 2028.

Aslam says the initiative is engaging the next generation in the country’s battle against climate change.

“Young people get very excited when they hear about this,” he said. “It’s their future that we’re investing in.”


Riaz Haq said...

#Pakistanis plant #trees to provide relief from scorching sun. There are neem saplings and vegetables sprouting up from scrubland in the #Clifton district of #Pakistan's largest city #Karachi. #ClimateCrisis #heatwave #floods #fires via @reuterspictures https://widerimage.reuters.com/story/pakistanis-plant-trees-to-provide-relief-from-scorching-sun?utm_campaign=web-share&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter

Mulazim Hussain is proud of the trees he has planted.

Surrounded by neem saplings and vegetables sprouting up from scrubland in the Clifton district of Pakistan's largest city Karachi, the 61-year-old recalls a time a few years ago when the area was a giant, informal rubbish tip.

"Now there is greenery and happiness, children come in the evening to play, people come to walk," he said, speaking near a patch of trees amid a barren expanse bordered by the sea on one side and tower blocks and offices in the distance on the other.

"I have raised these plants like my children over the last four years," he added, taking a break from his labours amid a fierce summer heatwave.

Wearing a white and brown scarf around his head and a loose, cream-coloured shirt, Hussain collected dry grass from the ground and watered his cherished trees during a recent visit by Reuters reporters to the urban forest plantation project.

At the end of the day, he turned the hose on himself to cool off and clean up before heading home on his motorcycle.

The father of two is employed by an urban afforestation project in a government-owned park in Karachi's upmarket Clifton area that is run by Shahzad Qureshi, who has worked on similar projects in other Pakistani cities and overseas.

It is one of dozens of state-owned and private planting initiatives in Pakistan, where forest cover lags far behind average levels across South Asia. Trees absorb carbon dioxide, emissions of which contribute to warming global temperatures.

The aim in Clifton is to counterbalance rapid urbanisation in Karachi, a sprawling port city of some 17 million people where breakneck expansion of roads and buildings means there is less and less space for trees and parkland.

Qureshi wanted to provide shade for residents seeking escape from rising temperatures - a heatwave in 2015 killed more than 400 people in the city in three days, and temperatures in the surrounding Sindh region reached record highs this year.

The trees can also attract local wildlife, mitigate urban flooding and provide new sources of food.


"The bigger the tree cover of the city the more the cooling, with a difference of up to 10 (degrees) Celsius when you are surrounded by trees," he told Reuters, adding that the project only used native species.

"As you plant ... it attracts insects, and varieties of birds start coming. Presently mongoose are roaming around in the park, and four or five varieties of chameleon.

"You give them a home, you give them food and let it happen. Nature is so beautiful."

DOES PLANTING HELP?

Overall forest cover in Pakistan, home to more than 220 million people, is around 5.4%, according to Syed Kamran Hussain, manager for the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province at the World Wide Fund for Nature's national branch.


That compares with 24% in neighbouring India and 14.5% in Bangladesh, and the previous government announced a mass forestation programme that envisaged planting 10 billion trees between 2019 and 2023.

"Pakistan is among the top 10 most vulnerable countries affected by global warming," Hussain said. "After oceans, trees are the second largest sink of carbon."

Some climate change experts question the impact of afforestation projects - the planting of trees where there were none before - in urban settings.

Riaz Haq said...

Riaz Haq has left a new comment on your post "Olive Revolution: Pakistan Joins International Olive Council":

#Pakistanis plant #trees to provide relief from scorching sun. There are neem saplings and vegetables sprouting up from scrubland in the #Clifton district of #Pakistan's largest city #Karachi. #ClimateCrisis #heatwave #floods #fires via @reuterspictures https://widerimage.reuters.com/story/pakistanis-plant-trees-to-provide-relief-from-scorching-sun?utm_campaign=web-share&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter


Some climate change experts question the impact of afforestation projects - the planting of trees where there were none before - in urban settings.

The choice of species is important, because it affects the amount saplings may need to be watered - a major factor in Pakistan where water is generally scarce.

And whether to plant trees at all is not a simple question: the benefits are not always clear and significant investment is needed to nurture saplings into fully grown trees.

"What is missing from urban forestry is a holistic approach to the environment," said Usman Ashraf, a doctoral researcher in development studies at the University of Helsinki. He was not commenting specifically on the Karachi project.

"It's about visual success, the numbers, small patches here and there," he said. "It won't even make a dent on any of the environmental harm in these cities."

Masood Lohar, who founded the Clifton Urban Forest that has planted trees on the beach front not far from Qureshi's project, said afforestation could help make Karachi more resilient against natural disasters and encourage wildlife to settle.

Experts say it can also provide relief from heatwaves, with the sea breeze getting hotter as it passes through concrete structures while roadways and rooftops absorb heat. Where to plant is a key question, with wealthier urban areas often better off in terms of tree cover.

In the absence of more trees, "we are turning the city into hell", Lohar said.

In the Sakhi Hassan Graveyard in the centre of the city, small saplings grow among uneven tombstones crammed close together, while larger trees offer shade from the midday sun.

Mohammad Jahangir, 35, is a caretaker there who waters the plants for a small cash donation from relatives who seeded them. Viewed from above, the graveyard is a sea of green that stands out against a low-rise neighbourhood.

"We don't feel the heat here in the graveyard, while the city sizzles," said Jahangir. "These trees are a blessing."

(Photo Editing Gabrielle Fonseca Johnson and Kezia Levitas; Additional Reporting Gloria Dickie in London; Writing Mike Collett-White; Text Editing Alison Williams; Layout Eve Watling)