The dwindling forest covers, loss of biodiversity and climate change are the most important challenges in the current discourse on sustainable development. Pakistan, like other low income countries, is faced with the fast decreasing forest cover. Deforestation rate in the country is quite alarming, where a number of factors are contributing to the diminishing of forest cover. It is estimated that approximately 43,000 hectares of forest had vanished per year between 1990 and 2010.

Forests bear important economic, social and environmental values. Forest is the source of livelihoods for millions of the poor who are directly or indirectly reliant on them. Forests also provide important ecological services such as carbon sequestration and hence assume a vital role in mitigation of global warming and climate change.

The province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is bestowed with plenty of natural resources including natural forests. The province covers 40 per cent of the country existing forests, and about 4.8 million hectares of its area is covered with natural forests. However, the natural forests in the province are under threat due to excessive deforestation and forest degradation. This is largely due to over harvesting of forests triggered by demographic and market forces.

The forest degradation and deforestation is due to tree felling for fuel, timber and free grazing. These are largely due to the existing demographic, socioeconomic and institutional factors.

The increasing population pressure and demand of wood for fuel and construction purposes has increased the deforestation rate. This in turn leads to over-harvesting of the natural forests.

Moreover, accessibility of forest resources, lack of alternative sources of energy, limited opportunities of employment, lack of plantation programmes, and free grazing are some of the leading causes that lead to the depletion of the natural forests. Much of the forest land is used as grazing land for livestock.

The productive forests of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are exposed to over-grazing by cattle, sheep and goats. Increasing demand for timber has led to increase in prices and has thus made the sale of timber a lucrative business. As a consequence, illicit tree felling and timber smuggling began in the province. Illicit forest activities are largely attributed to failure in the strict execution of the forest rules.

Additionally, insecurity of forest ownership is one of the major factors leading to over-exploitation of natural forests in the province. Currently, an atmosphere of mistrust exists between the state Forest Department and the forest owners. There exists a dispute between the forest user communities and the Forest Department and a large number of court cases are pending.

Undue exploitation of natural forests also occurs as in commercial logging the revenues accrued to the government are not equitably and fairly distributed. An important factor that is often neglected is the misappropriation and inequitable distribution of the money accrued from commercial logging.

The ongoing trends of deforestation are having drastic impacts not only on the economic and ecological functions of the forests, but also on the bio-diversity and sustainable livelihood of communities dwelling in and around the forests.

Lack of effective plantation programmes and lack of active community participation have led to the failure of plantation drives in the past. Forest owners in the past have resisted plantation programmes on barren lands in the forest areas. This is attributed to the fact that the communities think that such plantation would reinforce the claims of the government to the ownership of forests.

Illegal tree felling by timber mafia is among the major causes of forest exploitation in the province. Due to weak enforcement mechanism against these mafias, government’s efforts in the past have proved counterproductive.

Lack of substitute sources of energy for cooking and heating, lack of off-farm job opportunities and remoteness from towns are also contributing to deforestation. Some lackluster efforts have been made in the past concerning the involvement of the local communities, however effective participation of the local communities has yet to be materialised. Nonetheless, similar efforts made in the past have not been successful because real devolution of forest management has never been prioritised.

The government has launched various programmes and projects for the management and conservation of forests in the province. The most prominent among these projects were Kalam Integrated Development Program (KIDP), Malam Afforestation Project (MAP), and Social Forestry Project (SFP).

The present government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has come up with the Green Growth Initiative (GGI). The objective of the programme is to enhance economic growth through sustainable use of forest and other natural resources in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The provincial government has set a target of planting 8 million trees of different species in the forest land. The government has allocated Rs40-60 billion for the proposed projects over a period of five years. Currently, 20 per cent of the land is covered by forests in the province, which is planned to be raised to 22 per cent by the year 2018.

The challenge facing the government is the successful implementation of Green Growth Initiative (GGI). Following are some of the suggestions for the policy makers, stakeholders and implementing agencies to make Green Growth Initiative (GGI) a success in order to materialise the dream of sustainable forest management, poverty reduction and equitable distribution of forest resources.

It is recommended that national forest policy should take into account the existing demographic, economic, ecological and institutional realities in the area.

The government should prioritise community participation. Unlike the previous efforts, real participation of the forest communities should be ensured.

National developmental and poverty reduction programmes should be extended to remote areas to provide alternate sources of energy through utilisation of the local water resources for hydroelectric power generation. Farmers in the area should be facilitated to produce crops and plant fruit tree species having more production potential and better market value to reduce dependency on forests for income generation. The government should create opportunities of off-farm income in the forest areas.

Free grazing in the natural forests should be regulated through participatory approach in order to convince the herders to regulate free grazing of goats in natural forest. Livestock, particularly goats, is an integral part of the livelihood of mountainous communities. Strategies are needed to help increase productivity of livestock. The Forest Department should regulate free grazing with active involvement of the local forest owners and nomadic grazers.

Plantation programmes are desirable to promote multipurpose trees.

The government should compensate the farmers to plant trees on private barren forest land.

The revenues accruing from commercial timber harvesting should be equitably and fairly distributed among forest user communities.

Plantation programmes should be launched focusing on multipurpose, well-adapted and environmentally friendly trees. Afforestation programmes in the past have failed to achieve their targets due to the selection of irrelevant tree species.

The government should make efforts to resolve issues related to forest ownership.

Ensure women participation in the Green Growth Initiative (GGI). Since women in the rural and most of the mountainous regions are actively involved in activities related to farming and forestry, any programme that ignores the active participation of women is likely to prove counterproductive.

The government should make effective legislations to protect the forest land from encroachment. There is a need to develop a closer coordination among the concerned departments, academia and industry in the forestry sector.