Plant for Pakistan: A green shield against floods, climate change
PESHAWAR (APP): For many Pakistani youth, government employment remains a dream but for 26-year-old Abdul Qadar, a graduate from Peshawar, turning to plants proved to be more than just a livelihood rather became a mission of climate resilience and economic sustainability.
“I applied for several government jobs after graduation, but lack of professional experience held me back,” he told APP at his bustling nursery in Tarnab Farm, a hub of plant trade in Peshawar.
“The pain of unemployment, especially for a married man like me, was unbearable. But with support from my father, I started this nursery business in 2019 and never looked back.”
With two trucks unloading thousands of ornamental and fruit plants brought in from Pathoki, Punjab province, Qadar’s nursery is thriving, particularly during the monsoon season when demand for the greenery soars in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
“This is the peak season as the government and private buyers, NGOs, even farmers and local government representatives, all want saplings for monsoon plantation,” he said, highlighting his preference for the government clients due to better profit margins compared to the general public.
But the nursery business was not without risk. Torrential rains, flash floods, and plant diseases can wipe out months of efforts of the plants sellers. “We faced huge losses during the 2022 floods and struggled hard to recover,” he recalled. “Floodwaters of river Bara damaged my nursery, and many precious plants were destroyed.”
The recent flooding in Swat has become a recurring threat not just to plant nurseries, but to human lives, land, and livelihoods. The recent River Swat’s tragedy that claimed lives of 18 tourists on a broad day light may have been averted if whopping plantations made in Kalam, Bahrain and Oshu valleys.
Hussain Khan, a local landowner at Nowshera lost two kanal of fertile land to the River Kabul during floods. “It was devastating for my family,” he said. “Now I have planted Shisham, Poplar and other canopy trees on my lands to control soil erosion and protect it from the River.”
In the scorching summer of Peshawar, 25-years-old Faraz Khan stands beside a freshly planted Shisham sapling. With mud-streaked hands and a proud smile, he waters the newly planted tree carefully, aware that he was participating in much larger national efforts under the ‘Plant for Pakistan.’
Plant for Pakistan is more than a mass plantation drive rather it is a national movement rooted in the urgency of climate resilience in the wake of Pakistan’s vulnerability to climate change and deforestation.
According to Pakistan’s National Forest Policy, the country was losing around 27,000 hectares of forest annually, particularly in community-owned forests of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan.
This alarming deforestation in Khyber Pakthunkhwa and Gilgit Baltistan is fueled by population growth, overgrazing, increasing wood consumption, and climate stress all exacerbating the frequency of rains and intensity of floods.
Pakistan’s vulnerability to climate change and global warming is no longer a prediction rather it’s a lived reality. From the devastating floods of 2010 and 2022 to droughts, cyclones, and glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs), the environmental toll is rising.
“Massive plantations are the most viable and sustainable solution of floods and climate change in Pakistan,” said Niaz Ali Khan, former Conservator of Forests while talking to APP. “Reforestation improves biodiversity, stabilizes soil, improves water quality, and reduces flood risks and it is right time to unite for Plant for Pakistan.”
Recognizing these environmental threats, the KP Forest Department has been at the forefront of the national reforestation efforts. Under the Green Growth Initiative (GGI), the first phase of the Billion Tree Afforestation Project (BTAP) achieved significant milestones including plantation of about 1.2 billion trees through 4,509 forest enclosures and 300,000 hectares through farm forestry.
He said this ambitious project earned international praise from the World Economic Forum, Bonn Challenge, COP-21, and others. Building on its success, he said Ten Billion Tree Tsunami Programme (10BTAP) was launched nationwide in 2018 and KP was again given a plantation target of an additional one billion trees.
The KP government will celebrate ‘Plant for Pakistan’ week from August 1–7, with ministers, public officials, and citizens planting saplings across the province. Tourists visiting scenic spots like Nathiagali, Kalam, Madain, Malam Jabba, and Kumrat will also be encouraged to plant trees under the theme: “Trees bring greenery, and greenery brings happiness.”
According to Ibrahim Khan, Deputy Director of 10BTAP, more than 700,000 saplings will be planted by the Forest Department during the monsoon campaign. An additional 250,000 saplings would be distributed among farmers and the public. Malakand forest region has been given a target of 367,000 saplings, northern forest region 475,000, central south forest region 149,000 saplings.
Moreover, about 184,000 fruit-bearing trees would be planted to ensure environmental and economic benefits for local communities. “If each person in KP plants and takes care of just two saplings, we can grow over 480 million trees to offset challenges posed by climate change and rising temperature,” Ibrahim added.
From Abdul Qadar’s nursery in Tarnab to the mountaintops of Malakand, Chitral, Abbottabad and Kaghan, Pakistan’s trees are more than foliage and they are its frontline defense against floods and climate challenges. “And in this war for climate resilience, every sapling counts,” Ibrahim concluded.
