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Summary The riverine and mangroves forests in Punjab and Sindh have been diminishing due to deforestation.
The official said, during the past two decades, there had been a significant deforestation in natural forests of Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.However, tree cover on farmlands and private wasteland has significantly increased during the period. Since Forestry is provincial subject, the federal government has been supporting this sector through national policies, capacity building and trainings, implementation of international agreements on forests and sponsoring of forestry sector development programmes.After 18th Amendment, these functions of federal government have been transferred to Ministry of Climate Change.The official further said despite the importance of forests in the life of common people, its contribution in the national economy is negligible 0.2 per cent whereas the country’s 5.2 per cent of total land area is under forest cover.A growth rate of 1 per cent has been observed in fiscal year 2011-12 while 2 per cent is a growth target for current financial year 2012-13.
