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Emporium Current Essays463Forestry in the present age is no longer a discipline devoted to the growing andharvesting of trees. Under the changing socioeconomic pattern forests are now furnishingnew products and services for more diverse use than is commonly realised. As a resource,forests supply wood and fodder, provide natural environment for wildlife and are a sourceof recreation. Forests also play an important role in soil conservation, prevent erosion andfloods, and provide grazing fields for the livestock of villagers living in the periphery of forests.There are two types of forests in Pakistan: production forests and protection forests. A production freest is one which is managed or will be when forest management plans are prepared, where timber is extracted, where tree density is high, and in most cases theforest canopy :$ closed. The protection forest has no commercial value. The trees that aregrown are not to supply wood. Their main function is to protect the soil, to keep it fromeroding or blowing away. It also includes amenity plantings along roads or railway lines.But of the total forest resource in Pakistan only 27.6 per cent is economically utilisedwhile the balance (72.4 per cent) is under protective cover.Forest cover:The total area under forest cover is stands at 4.58 million hectare which represents about5.2 per cent of the total geographical area of the country.Pakistan did not inherit a very rich forest resource. However under government plantingof trees in watershed areas, irrigated plantation and riverine forests were taken up.Extension and social forestry programmes have been started on a large scale and forestarea has now grown from 1.4 minion hectare at the time of independence to 4.58 millionhectare at present. This, however, compares quite unfavourably with other countries of the region, i.e., 464Emporium Current EssaysMalaysia 64.5 per cent, Sri Lanka 42.4 per cent, India 23.7 per cent, China 17.7 percent,Bangladesh 15.3 per cent, etc.There are two major reasons for this resources inadequacy:* More than 70 per cent of the area of Pakistan is arid and semi-arid. In this large tractnot only is vegetation sparse but the land once cleared does not positively respond toafforestation/reforestation efforts due to deterioration of site condition.
* Incessant cutting of trees in almost all parts of the country over the last couple of centuries.Importance vfforests:The forestry sector makes a very significant contribution to the economic and socialsectors. It has pronounced backward and forward linkages with other sectors of theeconomy. Accordingly any change in this sector brings about wide multiplier effectswhich penetrate every sector of the economy.Forests are important for ecological as well as social security. They are vital for keepingthe environment in equilibrium by increasing the capacity of land to hold and conserve,water, prevent erosion of soils, desertification, waterlogging, salinity and in controlling pollution by supplying clean air. ;Forests provide social security in terms of ensuring food to millions of people byregulating the supply of water to reservoirs and canals systems, preventing a decline insoil fertility and ensuring the productivity of land. They provide raw material for a largenumber of wood based industries and local use which in turn generates income andemployment to a large number of people. The tree resource on farm lands and forests provide for 50 per cent of the domestic energy needs.Types of forests:The distribution of forests in Pakistan is governed by climatic and edaphic factors, amplyreflected in the diversity of available forest types. While large areas are under naturalconiferous and bro..d leafed forests, some of the forests are entirely man made. Startingfrom the alpine scrub in the northern Himalayas, there are a variety of forest types whichend up with mangrove forests in the Indus Delta swamp along the Arabian Sea.Deforestation by vegetation type:,;vEmporium Current Essays 465(11 CONIFEROUS/UPLAND FORESTSThe coniferous forests of Pakistan located in the remote areas of the north are animportant source of commercial timber. The potential for tree growth is good an theavailable species are valuable resources. However, pressure from- people and animals is aserious threat to the sustainabiiity of these forests.Animals discrimiaately graze on ydu&g trees and people overuse them. The entireregenerative capacities of the forests decrease and industrial felling becomes a threat dueto over harvesting.
Technical limitations are also a cause for serious concern. Trees are cut by hand aces or saws and rolled down hillsides, wasting much wood and causing environmental damage.Long rotation periods result in over mature trees being commercially less valuable. Theyalso reduce the light available to young trees.(2J SCRUB FORESTSThey occur in almost all provinces and are & source of timber, fire wood and fodder for local communities. They include dry sub-tropical broad leafed and tropical thornyspecies. Scrub forests cover an area of 1.7 million hectare i.c,, 37.56 per cent of the totalforest area in Pakistan. The management objective is to protect watersheds and supplyfuel wood. Scrub forests are growing in adverse conditions and many never be able to produced and may never be able to produce large Volumes of wood per unit area. (3jIRRIGATED PLANTATIONSCurrently 120,000 hectare of man-made plantation* in the Punjab and Sindfa provide asignificant supply of industrial wood. These ancient, economically important plantationsare now under threat Irrigated forests depend upon artificial sustenance from irrigationcanals. This irrigation water has to be allocated both to agricultural land and plantations.As agriculture dominates water allocations, the water made available to these plantationshas reached critically low levels.The problem is exacerbated by increasing situation in the irrigation canals which leads toa rise in the ground level of plantations. The entire system of plantation and canals is poorly maintained due to non-availability of local labour. Harvesting of trees for sericulture of mulberry trees also leaves them in poor conditions, resulting in low productivity. It this trend continues agricultural land will soon replace plantations. 466Emporium Current EssaysRiverine forestsRiverine forests are dependent upon the natural flooding or the Indus Basis and aredominated by Acacia plants of Sindh and the Punjab. They are crucially important to thefurniture and firewood industries, to meet the fuel wood and charcoal needs of rural andorbaa areas for mining timber used by the coal industry,The rapid deterioration of these forests is a result of construction of upstream dams whichreduce the amount, extent and frequency of flooding.It is estimated that recently only SQ per cent of the gross area of these forests ia Sindbwas inundated with water causing40,000 hectare of original forests to be completely denuded of vegetation.
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102. Forestry in Pakistan
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