By Mansoor Malik
LAHORE: Identifying environmental changes, population growth, and land-use issues as challenges for forest conservation, the Punjab forest department has taken up an ambitious plan of doubling forest area in the province in next five years.
In line with this goal, the forest department has launched a largest tree plantation campaign having plans to plant 51 million saplings during 2025-26. Some 20m saplings will be planted during the ongoing monsoon plantation campaign and 31m saplings during the spring campaign of 2026.
The forest department at its one-day conference on 鈥淓mpowering Forest Frontlines: Strategy, Surveillance, Sustainability鈥 also identified that the colonial-era provisions of the Forest Act, 1927, were still in force and urgently needed revision.
Director General (Forests), Punjab, Azfar Ziya told Dawn on Saturday that the conference aimed at developing strategies to conserve existing forests, prepare new legal and policy frameworks to increase forest cover.
Forest dept to revise colo