Ten Billion Trees Tsunami Program of Pakistan

The world is threatened by climate change due to overgrowing urbanization and industrialization. Right now, all countries are trying to lower this threat by adapting to many drastic changes. Pakistan has adopted a unique and creative idea to overcome climatic disasters in such a situation.

This unique idea is named as ‘’Ten Billion Trees Tsunami Program’’.

Context:

This idea was introduced at first in the KPK province of Pakistan in 2014. Later on, this program was officially launched in all provinces of Pakistan as to be completed in four years from 2019 to 2023 with a total cost of about 125.2 billion.

Intent:

The purpose of this program is to restore the ailing ecosystem, improve natural capital, encourage eco-tourism, community engagement, and reduce the emerging risks of floods and ‘’Ten Billion Trees Tsunami Program Phase-I droughts. Besides all these objectives, this program will be able to support livelihood by supporting over 85000 daily wagers and will also create around 7000 long-term jobs. This project entertains both plantings and naturally regenerating forests and will also play a role model for other countries to regenerate this idea to control climatic threats in natural ways. In spring 2021, around 12000 students in Gujranwala city of Pakistan planted 50000 saplings at one time at the same time trying to create a world record which is a significant achievement and a very positive step towards climate change.

Progress:

According to WWF, this program started earlier in 2014 successfully planted around 872.3 million seedlings with an average survival rate of 89%. Now around 1 billion plantations have been done by the end of June 2021. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the forest and wildlife department provided green jobs to around 84000 daily wagers under the Ten Billion Trees Tsunami Program.

Barriers:

Like every mirror also has a dark side, this program is also affected negatively by various hindrances. Experts believe that planting trees can be very useful in climatic change, but doing it without consideration can negatively affect it.

A severe hindrance is budget and transparency issues. The government has reserved around 125 billion rupees for this project but many other costs are being neglected, and being a developing country, the budget issue is very concerning for Pakistan. According to a survey, one sapling costs around 15 Pakistani Rupees, and so ten billion saplings will cost a lot of strain on the budget

Another critical point is the threat to water sources as ten billion trees will require a billion gallons of water, leading to clearance of natural water sources, causing a severe threat.

Survival Rate also has a vital role. In the beginning, the survival rate of the planted trees was 89%, but due to lack of sources and improper take care, it reduced to 60% only. Many saplings planted exclusively for creating a world record burnt within no time due to intense heat.

Conclusion

The government of Pakistan has taken a positive step in the right direction to reduce the climatic threat, but it takes decades for environmental degradation to be prevented. This project is appreciated by many countries and environmentalists who believe that this step encourages preventing natural disasters and providing a healthy environment.