Pakistan: Firewood scarcity and citizen-based divisioning of last sources
Deforestation is continuing on a large scale in many areas of Pakistan
where natural gas has still not been supplied. Not much area is
covered by forests in Pakistan which cannot afford any further
reduction in the forest cover. Here I would present the plight of forests
in Zhob. It is a small
border city on the north of Balochistan. It is still without gas. The
main source of fuel here for households is the wood procured from
forests. There are evergreen forests of olive and Chilghoza pine here, which
are rare in Pakistan. The people of the area have divided the
forestlands among themselves to cut and sell the wood for earning
their livelihood. A 40kg of wood nowadays costs about Rs350, which
encourages wood-cutters. Forests are shrinking here due to the
large-scale consumption of wood in houses and kilns. Saving forests
and wildlife is not just the responsibility of the WWF, IUCN or
others. It is the responsibility of the government and much more of
the citizens to save the nature. The immediate step for the prevention
of the deforestation on the part of the government would be to supply
gas to these areas which would discourage the cutting of forests, but
it does not seem that the government would do so in the near future.
http://www.paktribune.com/news/index.shtml?210092
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