PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has claimed to plant 115 million sapling so far and grow 300 million more sapling in 4,285 private and 312 public sector nurseries for planting in the year 2017 under “Billion Tree Tsunami Project” (BTTP) at a cost of Rs 1,576 million (Rs 1.576 billion).
The number of tree plantation will reach to 250 million by March this year and an amount of Rs 9826 million had been approved under phase-II of the project that was started in 2015 and will be completed in 2018 by planting one billion trees in the province.
These facts were disclosed in a briefing about BTTP given to Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak during their visit to the remote Makhniyal village of Haripur district.
They visited by the area to view the tree plantation being carried out by the KP environment and wildlife department in collaboration with local communities. The Secretary Environment Syed Nazar Hussain Shah and representatives of the International Monitoring Organization, World Wildlife Fund (WWF), gave the briefing.
The provincial cabinet members Muhammad Arif, Mushtaq Ahmad Ghani and Ishtiaq Urmar were also present on this occasion. The PTI leader Yousaf Ayub, the Commissioner and DIG Hazara, Deputy Commissioner Haripur and others were also present on the occasion.
Presenting findings of the monitoring report the WWF officials disclosed that had scientifically monitored 50 per cent of the implemented target of BTTP in 28 forest and 10 watershed divisions where 82 per cent survival rate of the newly planted sapling was found.
