Skip to content
Menu
REDD-Monitor
  • Start here
  • About REDD-Monitor
  • REDD: An introduction
  • Contact
REDD-Monitor
Billion Tree Tsunami, Pakistan

Pakistan’s tree planting programmes: Corruption, exclusion and marginalisation

Posted on 2 June 20202 June 2020

By Chris Lang

At the end of April 2020, Thomson Reuters Foundation reported that Pakistan was employing people who had lost their jobs because of the coronavirus to plant trees. The article quoted Malik Amin Aslam Khan, climate change advisor to the prime minister, as saying that, “This tragic crisis provided an opportunity and we grabbed it. Nurturing nature has come to the economic rescue of thousands of people.”

The news was repeated widely and invariably as good news.

The World Economic Forum (which recently launched a One Trillion Trees Initiative) produced a short video promoting Pakistan’s tree planting programme:

“Triple win – good for climate, good for nature, good for jobs”, Erik Solheim, the ex-head of UNEP, commented on Twitter. Solheim, of course, was forced to resign from UNEP after running up an enormous carbon footprint.

If alarm bells aren’t ringing by now, you really haven’t been paying attention.

Tree planting jobs, for less than the minimum wage

The tree planting is part of Pakistan’s “10 Billion Trees Tsunami”, launched in 2018 by Pakistan’s prime minister Imran Khan.

In April 2020, Pakistan’s prime minister Imran Khan announced an exemption to the country’s coronavirus lockdown to allow the 10 Billion Trees campaign to restart. Government officials told Thomson Reuters Foundation that restarting the programme would create more than 63,000 jobs.

It isn’t clear whether these are jobs that already existed before the coronavirus, or whether these are additional jobs. The Pakistan Institute of Development Economics estimates that the lockdown could result in 19 million people losing their jobs.

Thomson Reuters Foundation spoke to a daily wage worker in Punjab who was unemployed because of the coronavirus crisis. He was now earning 500 rupees per day planting trees. That’s about half of what he could earn on a good day before the coronavirus – better than nothing, but it’s still less than the minimum wage for unskilled workers in Punjab.

The Billion Tree Tsunami Afforestation Project

The 10 Billion Trees Tsunami followed a Billion Tree Tsunami Afforestation Project (BTTAP) that started in 2014 in the country’s northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The US$169 million programme added a total of 350,000 hectares of trees through tree planting and regeneration. In August 2017, Inger Andersen, Director General of IUCN described the Billion Tree Tsunami as “a true conservation success story”.

Incidentally, Malik Amin Aslam Khan, climate change advisor to Imran Khan and tree planting proponent, is also the Global Vice President of IUCN.

In March 2018, Pakistan’s National Accountability Bureau launched an inquiry into corruption in the BTTAP. In January 2020, it reported that it had investigated payments for ghost plantations, misappropriation and embezzlement of daily wages, nepotism, and favouritism in selection of nurseries. In total, the National Accountability Bureau found that about US$3 million had been lost to corruption under the project.

Exclusion and marginalisation

In June 2017, Usman Ashraf carried out research in the Hazara region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, for his masters degree at the International Institute of Social Studies, in the Netherlands. Ashraf is now a PhD candidate at the University of Helsinki.

The plantations established under the BTTAP covered an area of 250,000 hectares of government fallow land, communal land, and private land. The project also created about 3,500 enclosures in state-owned forests. Previously people had used these forests for grazing, as well as collecting dead wood and non-timber forest products (NTFPs). These enclosures were closed for three consecutive years to grazing, collecting of wood and NTFPs, and even access rights were forbidden.

In a 2019 article in Economic & Political Weekly, Ashkar describes “the dynamics of exclusion and marginalisation that have disproportionately affected the communities in KPK”.

The forest department offered subsidies to landowners to plant trees on their land. The landowners received free seedlings and could choose which species they wanted to plant. Most chose eucalyptus, because it grows quickly. After five years, the landowner could cut the trees and sell the timber. In designing its subsidy programme, the forest department simply assumed that everyone in the province owned land.

Landowners have also taken their land back from tenants, so that they can establish plantations on the land.

Ashraf points out that, “the people who are most dependent on forests for their livelihood are landless herders.” Under the BTTAP, many of them have lost access to land and now have no land they can use as pasture during the winter.

Ashraf tells the story of one herder, Amir, whose father had 150 goats. In 2015, their landowner contracted with the forest department to establish a tree plantation on the land. As a result, Amir’s family lost access to the land and could no longer feed their goats. They tried to get another plot of land, but everyone wanted to plant trees on their plots of land. Buying fodder from the market was too expensive.

Under the BTTAP, grazing in state-owned reserve forest was no longer an option. They started selling goats to raise money to buy fodder for the herd. But eventually, the family gave up trying to keep goats and sold the entire herd. Amir started working as a construction labourer, but found little work. His brother moved to a nearby city where he worked in his uncle’s shop. The father stayed at home looking after the only cow they had left.

Ashraf writes that,

It is perplexing that efforts to mitigate climate change (afforestation in this case) are the reason for destroying the livelihoods of many people.

 

  • Twitter
  • Linkedin
  • Reddit
  • email
  • Facebook

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

SUBSCRIBE!

Enter your email address to receive notification of new posts.

Recent themes
Natural Climate Solutions
WWF's conservation scandals
Aviation and offsetting
Conservation Watch

Recent Comments

  • Fábio Alkmin on “REDD does nothing to address the crisis of endless economic growth.” Interview with Chris Lang, REDD-Monitor, by Fábio Alkmin, PhD student at the University of São Paulo, Brazil
  • Kathleen McCroskey on Papua New Guinea Environmental Alliance demands proper REDD safeguards and implementation of moratorium on voluntary carbon market REDD projects
  • Kathleen McCroskey on “REDD does nothing to address the crisis of endless economic growth.” Interview with Chris Lang, REDD-Monitor, by Fábio Alkmin, PhD student at the University of São Paulo, Brazil
  • shahid a on “REDD does nothing to address the crisis of endless economic growth.” Interview with Chris Lang, REDD-Monitor, by Fábio Alkmin, PhD student at the University of São Paulo, Brazil
  • shahid on James Moore sentenced to more than 11 years in prison for his role in the Bar Works scam

Recent Posts

  • Stop the Racist Conservation Model!
  • Business as usual at WWF Germany: Conflict of interest allegations; Executive Director resigns; Whistleblower threatened with dismissal; WWF Germany covers up
  • Papua New Guinea Environmental Alliance demands proper REDD safeguards and implementation of moratorium on voluntary carbon market REDD projects
  • “REDD does nothing to address the crisis of endless economic growth.” Interview with Chris Lang, REDD-Monitor, by Fábio Alkmin, PhD student at the University of São Paulo, Brazil
  • Offsetting is not an option if we are serious about addressing the climate crisis. My response to Hartmut Graßl

Recent Comments

  • Fábio Alkmin on “REDD does nothing to address the crisis of endless economic growth.” Interview with Chris Lang, REDD-Monitor, by Fábio Alkmin, PhD student at the University of São Paulo, Brazil
  • Kathleen McCroskey on Papua New Guinea Environmental Alliance demands proper REDD safeguards and implementation of moratorium on voluntary carbon market REDD projects
  • Kathleen McCroskey on “REDD does nothing to address the crisis of endless economic growth.” Interview with Chris Lang, REDD-Monitor, by Fábio Alkmin, PhD student at the University of São Paulo, Brazil
  • shahid a on “REDD does nothing to address the crisis of endless economic growth.” Interview with Chris Lang, REDD-Monitor, by Fábio Alkmin, PhD student at the University of São Paulo, Brazil
  • shahid on James Moore sentenced to more than 11 years in prison for his role in the Bar Works scam

Issues and Organisations

30x30 AB 32 Andes Amazon Boiler rooms California Can REDD save ... ? Carbon accounting Carbon Credits Carbon Offsets CDM Conservation-Watch Conservation International COP21 Paris Deforestation FCPF FERN Financing REDD Forest definition Fossil fuels FPP Friends of the Earth FSC Green Climate Fund Greenpeace Guest post ICAO Illegal logging Indigenous Peoples Natural Climate Solutions NGO statements Plantations Poznan R-M interview REDD and rights REDD in the news Risk RSPO-Watch Safeguards Sengwer The Nature Conservancy UN-REDD UNFCCC World Bank WRM WWF

Countries

Australia Bolivia Brazil Cambodia Cameroon Canada China Colombia Congo Basin region Costa Rica DR Congo Ecuador El Salvador European Union France Germany Guatemala Guyana Honduras India Indonesia Kenya Laos Madagascar Malaysia Mexico Nicaragua Norway Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Republic of Congo Sierra Leone Sweden Tanzania Thailand Uganda UK Uncategorized United Arab Emirates USA Vietnam West Papua
©2022 REDD-Monitor | Powered by WordPress and Superb Themes!