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**By
APD Writer Muhammad Sohail **
ISLAMABAD, Oct. 24 (APD) -- Environmental and forest experts have expressed their deep concerns over rapid deforestation in Pakistan, which is causing natural disasters in the country.
Addressing a conference on deforestation in the country’s eastern city of Lahore on Monday, the experts said that climate change issue is worsening and reaching alarming levels day by day due to the unstopping cutting of trees.
According to official data, the country has a total forest cover of 4.4 million hectares, and the current rate of deforestation is 27,000 hectares per year.
Muhammad Saleem Sheikh, Deputy Director Ministry of Climate Change, said that due to the massive cutting of trees, the temperature in various parts of the country was rising.
“Temperatures in most of the mountainous valleys of Pakistan never used to go beyond 30 degree Celsius during summers, but, now it is surpassing 40 degree Celsius at times which is causing floods,” said Sheikh.
Humera Aysha, Manager of Pakistan Chapter of World Wide Fund for Conservation of Nature (WWF), said that due to drop in a number of trees, the temperature is increasing and causing glacial melting “snow-line of glaciers is marching upwards”.
Emphasizing the importance of afforestation on a large scale, Kashif Salik, an expert in the environment from Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI, suggested to raise awareness on how forests were essential for the biodiversity conservation and improved water resource management.
Expressing concern over rapid deforestation, Salik said the government should evolve a comprehensive policy to control environmental degradation and to take concrete steps to stop deforestation and eco-degradation.
Prominent Pakistani environmentalist Mehmood Khalid Qamar said that rapid tree cutting was the main cause of serious climate change, which includes sea-level rise, floods, higher than average temperatures, a higher frequency of droughts and expanding desertification.
"The climate change-related disasters, particularly riverine and flash floods, cause around four billion dollars of losses annually in economic damages, most of them related to agriculture, water, irrigation, health, education, energy and public infrastructure sectors," he added.
Pakistan’s Ministry of Climate Change (MoCC) has been running a campaign of planting trees across the country to overcome environmental issues, but experts opined that such efforts are too little to deal with the huge threat.
Considering deforestation the threat of the time, Pakistan’s northwest province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has successfully planted one billion trees during last four years and won international acclamations.
(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)
