April 07, 2010

Brief on Forestry Sector

Background
Pakistan has meagre forest resources, with less than 5% of its total land under tree
cover. Forests serve important functions in Pakistan. Forestry provides the nation with its
entire needs of industrial and fuel wood. Forest cover is vital for protecting northern
upland watersheds. Ninety percent of Pakistan’s water comes from these watersheds.
Efficient use of water for hydropower generation and irrigation depends on the
management of the catchment areas above the water reservoirs. Further, erosion of fertile
soil from upland watersheds, and siltation in the reservoirs and irrigation works poses
significant costs to the economy. Depletion of forests in the upland watersheds is a major
contributing phenomenon.
Forestry administration is decentralized to a large extent. Provinces are responsible
for planning and implementation of forest and range management programmes. Long-
term policy, however, is a federal responsibility. The sector comes under the jurisdiction
of Ministry of Environment at the federal level. Provinces have separate minister for
forestry. Each province has a forest department which is responsible for the
administration of the sector. Forest Department administers its daily affairs on the basis
of forest working plans. These are medium term (10-20 years) planning documents.
Forests are mostly government property in Pakistan, legally classified as public
forests (state-owned) and private forests. The main categories of public forests are
Reserved Forests and Protected Forests, while Guzara Forests constitute the main part of
private forests. While Reserved Forests are almost free of private rights, Protected Forests
are encumbered with rights of forest communities, which are entitled to a share in forest
royalties. In NWFP, which houses 40% of forests in Pakistan, the harvesting and sale of
wood is the responsibility of another public agency- Forest Development Corporation
(FDC). The FDC contracts out part of the operations to private contractors, which
includes harvesting and transportation operations. Problems with this institutional
arrangements emerged when forest contractors bought royalties from concessionists (with
the help of local elders) and entered into agreement with the FDC as de facto owners,

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thus having an interest in over felling. This alliance between the forest contractor,
forester and local influential, known as the ‘timber mafia’, is considered as the main
beneficiary of weak institutional set-up regulating forest use.

Approach toward Forest Management

Sustainable management of forest resources is a challenging task in Pakistan.
Specific issues haunting sustainable management of forests include; (1) pressure on
forests to meet the high domestic demand for wood; (2) subsistence requirements of
people dependent on forest products, exacerbated by rapidly increasing population of
forest dwellers; (3) Land encroachment; (4) timber mafia; (5) market forces; (6) weak
institutional capacity of the Forest Department. Together these create a perverse incentive
structure and encourage rent-seeking activities resulting in illegal extraction of wood.
Forest department, alone, is ill equipped to counter these challenges. This requires a
complete over-hauling of institutional arrangements regulating forest use in favour of
Joint Forest Management (JFM), thus relaxing current regime of government control over
forests and creating space for community participation and private sector involvement.
The government, in cognizance of the need to garner additional resources (both human
and financial), has included promoting public-private partnership ‘to enhance forest cover
and promote commercial forestry’ in its proposed National Forest Policy [draft]. The
NWFP Forest Ordinance [2002] also incorporates JFM as one of its provisions [clause
102, chapter XII]. Earlier the FSMP (1992), which provides 25 years policy guidelines
for the national development of forestry in Pakistan, had emphasised farm forestry for
supply of wood, and participation of people for improvement and conservation of forests
and watersheds. Many examples exist of the JFM in the Northern Areas, Kalam and
Kaghan. Experience with the JFM in these areas can be used to institute similar
management practices over larger forest areas. The government needs to prioritise
forestry sector and redress institutional malfunction in favour of more participatory forms
of management.