Punjab Forest Minister Minister for Forest Punjab Sibtain Khan and Secretary Forests Shahid Zaman while congratulating the people of province on new year have said that the 2022 will be the year to accelerate the progress on the green Pakistan vision of PM and CM Punjab.
While sharing the statistics of 2021 of the forest department here on Friday, Sibtain Khan and Shahid Zaman added that in 2021, the forest department has planted a record number of trees. 217 million saplings were planted in the province between January to December 2021.
They informed that during the said year, more than 100% tree planting was done in Monsoon Tree Plantation campaign. Spring Tree Planting and Plant for Pakistan Day campaigns were also the huge but successful campaigns. 267 plantation awareness activities were organized in the form of seminars, walks, co-curricular activities in schools and information stalls across the province. Thousand acres of encroachment forest lands were recovered.
The provincial minister and secretary forests said that for the implementation of amended Forest Protected Act, various steps were taken against illegal activities in the forest and launched the FIR against timber mafia’s and penalties. In the year 2021, construction of 5 mega projects including new national parks was started in major cities of Punjab out of which 2 national parks are nearing completion while the remaining 3 national parks will be completed till 2023.
Similarly, they said several forest rest houses were renovated while a grand operation was carried out against sawmill installed around the different forests. More than 400 night-vision cameras have been installed in the Changa-Manga forest for the effective protection the forest assets.
According to the statistics 2021 of Forest Department, more than 31 million trees were planted only in Lahore division. 983,976 saplings were planted in Lahore division between January and June and 2,147,937 saplings between July and December. 504,000 plants were prepared in 4 nurseries of Lahore and 179,000 plants were distributed free of cost.
The construction of Dargai Gil Forest near Ferozwala is also near to complete, which will be completed in 2022.
The Minister Forest Sibtain Khan and Secretary Forest Shahid Zaman has expressed their commitment to complete Namal Lake and other development schemes by 2023.
