BendiNewsTest: Pakistan province to plant 1 billion trees to revive plundered forests

Thursday, May 7, 2015

Pakistan province to plant 1 billion trees to revive plundered forests

Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwai government has announced plans to plant 1 billion trees to revive the province’s once glorious coniferous forests. Since the September 11 attacks in the United States, illegal loggers and Taliban have plundered the forests, so that only stumps remained of the region’s Pindrow fir, Morinda spruce, deodar, blue pine and chir pine trees. In 2012, The Guardian reported the administrative district Swat was a major target, and the Taliban “mercilessly stripped” Swat of its trees to sustain their military operations. Now, aware of the twin threat of climate change and land erosion, the provincial government will pump $150 million into a monumental tree-planting effort, Al Jazeera reports. Local nurseries expect the plan will boost their business as well. Elsewhere in the region, according to Treehugger, other plans are underway to plant 2 billion trees in neighboring India, while Ethiopia has also been hard at work replanting after deforestation.

Via Treehugger

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