PESHAWAR
Secretary Forestry Environment & Wildlife department Muhammad Abid Majeed has said that 45 percent of the country’s forest located Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 51 percent of the its forest carbon stocks were also present in the province.
Addressing to KP “Working Group on Voluntary Carbon Market Forum” he said that most carbon dense forests of the country were temperate forests of KP as they have the ability to accumulate or reservoir about 170-ton Carbon per hectare.
Avoiding one hectare deforestation in the province means emission reduction of 367 tons of carbon dioxide, adding that forests of the province possessed a sequential protection of Carbon stocks.
He informed that through natural forests and recent plantation on 2.048-hectare area of KP made under Billion Tree Tsunami Project a potential of annual carbon Sequestration i.e., 11.20 million tons and gets stock of 194.31 million tons, which includes 67.60 million tons in Hazara division, 73.25 million tons in Malakand Division, 3.87 million tons in Southern belt and 49.60 million tons carbon in newly merged tribal districts.
Historically there have been emissions of 4 million tons of carbon dioxide per year from deforestation and degradation before 2012 which have been reduced up to 50 percent, resulting in emission reduction of 2 million tons per year.
Secretary forest said that protected areas of the province have been increased from 10 percent to over 15.6 percent which had positive effects on emissions reduction.
Due to forest conservation and improved forest management natural forests sequester about 8 million tons of carbon dioxide per year. Massive reforestation and afforestation projects have been implemented like BTAP and 10 BTTAP which will result in carbon sequestration of 5 million tons of carbon dioxide.
Abid Majeed said that the provincial government has also conducted forest carbon stock assessment and developed carbon tables for 15 major tree species.
He shared with the participants of the group meeting that the forest department has established satellite land monitoring system in collaboration with SUPARCO for continuous monitoring of forest cover changes.
The department was also committed to Increase registration of projects in the voluntary carbon market with focusing on ecosystem restoration in KP, he added and said that the department was also exploring alternative sources of sustainable energy and also exploring non-timber forestry products (NTFPs) and other potential economic and income-generating opportunities for the people of KP.
He further added that there was dire need to map out the carbon potential of KP province and conduct survey to identify potential sources of climate finance generation including existing renewable energy sites, existing forestry sites and potential afforestation sites in the province.
