ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Saturday paid tribute to an official of the forest department who earlier this month laid his life in the line of duty.
Jamshid Iqbal died on August 19 while attempting to douse a fire in the Chumurkun-Gole Protected Forest in Chitral.
The prime minister, while appreciating the services of the firefighters. said: “These are our heroes protecting our forests for a green Pakistan.”
On 19 Aug another hero of Forest Dept, Jamshid Iqbal, Forester Chitral Forest Div embraced Shahadat in the line of duty while fighting a forest fire in Chumurkun-Gole Protected Forest Compartment No.01. These are our heroes protecting our forests for a Green Pakistan. pic.twitter.com/GDYNoFUQyz
— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) August 21, 2021
August marks the beginning of monsoon season in Pakistan, and with the rain comes another busy stretch for the country’s ambitious tree-planting programme.
Between July 2018 and June 2019, frequent incidents of forest fire reduced over 1.2 million trees in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa alone. The fire incurred a loss of Rs27.2 million to the provincial government.
Pakistan lost an average of approximately 43,000 hectares of forests every year from 2000 to 2010. With only above 2 percent forest cover remaining and a high deforestation rate, the KP government launched a billion-tree plantation project named Billion Tree Tsunami in 2014 and completed it in 2017.
The project won acclaim from across the world, following which Imran launched another project named 10 billion-tree tsunami for the whole country in February 2019.
