Pakistan is facing severe environmental challenges, including deforestation and declining air quality, due to illegal logging and a high dependence on firewood as a main source of energy. This has resulted in a drastic reduction in tree coverage and increased CO2 emissions, contributing to the adverse impacts of climate change in the country
Yaad Gul is one of many people in Pakistan who runs a timber company in a main Sector of Islamabad; responsible for cutting down of trees to be utilized for various industrial purposes. The wood is cut and brought to the factory from various cities. The logs are then finely cut flat into sawn wood for making furniture and other artefacts. “Due to the cutting of trees, the winter season has shortened to only three months. Floods in Swat and Punjab has also affected the timber business. Wood is mainly used in shuttering and construction work,” Gul said.
The Government regulates the licensing for logging of the forests but inevitably illegal logging remains a major issue in many areas.
Islamabad is now mourning over the rapidly increasing loss of its centuries old standing trees. In 2010, 2.6% of the land area in Islamabad was covered by forest, with 2.19 hectares of tree coverage. Deforestation has adversely affected Margalla Hills National Park resulting to the change in forest cover. In 2021 alone, 1.35ha of tree cover was lost, causing 561t of CO2 emissions, according to Global Forest Watch statistics report. Due to shortage of other energy sources the lower-class people in Pakistan are forced to rely on wood for fire. According to statistics, 68% of the population in Pakistan relies on firewood as their main source of energy, consequently contributing to the rise in deforestation and climate change ignorantly. Environmental experts believe that among other reasons deforestation has the major impact in the declining environmental situation.
Water and Climate Change Expert Dr. Asif Khan addressed the energy issue in the country, saying, “One of the main causes of deforestation in Pakistan is actually the lack of access to energy. So, if we provide more energy sources, particularly to northern Pakistan, we can reduce the deforestation. And people over there have financial constraints, so they don’t have anything for their cooking, warmth etc. So people use to burn those wood.”
The impacts of the gradual shift in the climate of Pakistan have been more prevalent since 1997 and the effects were witnessed every year in the form of heatwaves, glacier meltdown, smog etc., but the floods of 2022 are self-evident event of the deadly effects of the climate change in Pakistan. The monsoon rains from June till August 2022 caused the floods in especially 3 big provinces of the country killing 1300 people and destroying 1.2 million houses with property damage of 10 billion dollars, all this loss for contributing less than 1% to global greenhouse gas emissions. It is evident that with massive floods at this rate, the natural habitat and forest cover were equally affected, the effects of which are prevalent in the declining air quality of major cities of Pakistan.
“We cut timber regularly and that comes to river side, and then whenever there is flash floods then that is washed off away. So we lose that timber that will be cut again. It will increase pressure on the forest cover. On the other side, according to an estimation, there has been 5 to 6 percent of damage on the forest in 2022. Deforestation causes increase of carbon emission, smoke problem in the regions such as Lahore, Punjab, part of other regions and here in Islamabad,” Ibrahim Khan, a WWF official stated.
Three of the major cities of Pakistan – Lahore, Karachi, and Peshawar – have been ranked among the top 10 cities in poor air quality index around the world. Deforestation is a major cause of the declining air quality as without trees that generously control the co2 levels in the air it will become impossible to balance humidity levels and rise in release of toxic pollutants in the air. With rising smog at an alarming rate over 128,000 people are dying annually of ambient air pollution illnesses.
According to Khan, deforestation could lead to increased emissions and landslides in the country. “If this rate of 11,000 hectares of deforestation per year continues, I think it could create a big problem of more emission, more landslides. There are 2-3 types of major strengthening, like restoration of the national forest through national regeneration, protection, giving incentives to the local communities to protect the national forests. Other is replanting. It depends on availability of the funds and resources. So far, I sense that there has been an increasing awareness in the public. People want to plant trees, protect trees. We are not implementing a project and trying to establish plantations.”
Only 2.2% of landmass in Pakistan is covered by trees, whereas worldwide standard is 25%, this number has also drastically lowered over the years. The huge difference is combined by natural as well as deliberate shortcomings of the forest management. Efforts have been put forward by Government and organizations towards afforestation. More than a billion trees were planted between 2019 and 2021 to revive the forest and wildlife resources in Pakistan. A project by WWF called “Rung Do Pakistan” also aims to plant more trees to achieve cleaner air and water. Similar initiative was taken by Afforestation Lahore Project who are so far successful in planting 25 lac trees with a stunning variety of flowering plants as well non-flowering plants. The government has taken steps to tighten the laws on issuing of forestry and timber permits and licenses to control environmental crimes like illegal logging and other forestry crimes.