Sharing a video of a hilly area in Swat showing trees being planted in the entire landscape, the prime minister said that it was Matta in Swat where the barren hills had been replaced by greenery owing to the Billion Tree Tsunami project.
“Incredible results from our Billion Tree Tsunami campaign in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa,” the prime minister had tweeted and added that Allah willing ‘InshaAllah’ they would leave a clean and green Pakistan for future generations.
Matta in Swat – Barren hills turning green. Incredible results from our Billion Tree Tsunami campaign in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa. InshaAllah we will leave a clean and green Pakistan for future generations. pic.twitter.com/HpkUlA88FR
— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) July 11, 2021
Pakistan’s ambitious 10 billion Tree Tsunami afforestation project also received praise in the parliament of the UK recently. The project was discussed and praised in the session of the House of Lords by UK’s environment minister. UK’s environment minister lauded the project and said the world should learn from it.
“The project is one of the most ambitious tree planting initiatives in the world and is a successful precedent for others to follow. I, enthusiastically, commend and celebrate Pakistan’s Ten Billion Tree Tsunami initiative and the tens of thousands of jobs that have been created due to the project. It goes to show what is possible and what can be achieved,” UK Minister Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park had said.
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Earlier this year, the prime minister had also inaugurated the country’s first ever ‘Miyawaki forest’. Miyawaki is a unique technique introduced by Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki, that helps build dense urban forests. In this method, different native species of plants are planted close to each other which lets the greens receive sunlight only from the top and makes them grow upwards rather than sideways. This leads to the plantation becoming approximately 30 times denser.
This technique makes the trees grow 10 times faster when compared to monoculture plantations and also guarantees growth of at least 1 meter every year, in tree height. The forest needs to be watered and weeded for the first two or three years, after which it becomes self-sustaining.
During the past decades, big cities like Lahore and Peshawar that were once known as “garden cities” had turned into “concrete, cement jungles” because of “merciless” deforestation, said PM Khan. Shedding light on the disastrous consequences of deforestation, he said that deforestation not only results in an increase in pollution but also has harmful effects for children and the elderly.
The prime minister said that sites have been selected by the government in Lahore and Islamabad where trees would be planted on the Miyawaki model.
Miyawaki forests have the ability to grow into mature ecosystems in just 20 years which is extremely fast when compared to the 200 years it can take a forest to regenerate on its own.
“Pakistan is among the countries most affected by climate change’’, said PM Khan. “We need to protect it through the plantation of trees across the country,” he added.