ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf MNA and spokesperson of Chairman Imran Khan, Dr. Shireen Mazari on Friday ridiculed Minister for Information Pervaiz Rashid’s claim that the PTI ‘Billion Tree Tsunami’ project was fake. She said if he was really serious about seeing the reality on the ground, then all he has to do is ask the KP government to take him to the tree plantation sites and see for himself the Billion Tree Tsunami project. After all, it is not fake like the Nandipur project. Unfortunately, the PML-N cannot think beyond concertized projects like the metro or the Orange Line, which threatens to destroy the nation’s rich cultural heritage. They have no vision of planning for the future and conservation so that our future generations are not confronted with a blighted environment. Instead of the Metro project in Islamabad – which the voters have rejected clearly and which has serious building hazards – if the federal government had only invested in building the right bank Chashma canal, hundreds of acres could have been made fertile for agricultural growth and would have provided so many poor unemployed people work in cultivation of crops like wheat. For decades this project has been held up because of the federal government’s denial of funds. “Pervaiz Rashid should realise that the PTI government in KP is the only one that has a vision for the future through environment protection and fighting climate change. While PM Sharif had no concrete specific proposal to put up at the Climate Change Conference in Paris, PTI’s Amin Aslam gave a presentation on the Billion Tree Tsunami project at the pavilion of the IUCN in Paris as part of the Climate Change Conference,” she said. The minister, she said, should know that this project has had enough initial success to be recognised and registered with the Bonn Challenge, which is a global partnership aimed at restoring 150 million hectares of the world’s deforested lands by 2020. As Information Minister of the federal government it is Rashid’s job to be aware of the good things happening in the country rather than consistently playing negative politics. Pakistan is amongst the top countries suffering the adverse impact of climate change and it is only the KP government that is trying to alleviate that impact through its Green Growth Initiative of which the Billion Tree Tsunami is one project. She said, “Pervaiz Rashid should go to KP, checkout the project and then have the grace to apologise for his ignorant”.
