ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Climate Change Mushahidullah Khan on Wednesday said that forests are a first major line of defence against negative impacts of climate change, particularly floods, droughts, groundwater depletion and sea intrusion.
The climate change minister said that depriving the earth of tree cover means exposing the planet and the life it harbours to irreversible damages.
“However, all efforts aiming at tackling climate change and its negative impacts will definitely fail if deforestation continues,” he warned during his keynote address to the inaugural ceremony of the Monsoon Tree Plantation 2015 at the Bani Gala Reserved Forests. “All of us must understand that without trees/forests earth and the life on it is at risk of vanishing, he emphasised.
Mushahidullah further said, “Conserving and protecting the existing forests and increasing tree cover in the country is at the heart of all activities of the Ministry of Climate Change. I would leave no stone unturned in increasing country’s tree cover from current less than five percent to 12 percent in next few years.” However, he said, the long-term goal of national forest policy, which is being finalised, is to increase tree cover up to 25 percent of the total landmass of the country.
He urged all governmental and non-governmental sectors to join the ministry’s efforts to save country’s existing forests and “boost the tree cover to make the planet sustainable for us and our coming generations”. He told the participants that forests play major role as far as coping with the vagaries of climate change is concerned besides holding the potential to slow down and stabilise climate change, which has become increasingly erratic because of shrinking forest cover globally.
The minister said that one major role played by the forests is to remove carbon dioxide from the air. If carbon dioxide increases in the atmosphere, it can severely alter the earth’s climate. Forests also provide a home for many plants and animals that can live nowhere else, he highlighted.
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