Forest friendly development

Development of forest areas, particularly in the mountain regions of NWFP, is faced with the two-key challenges of poverty alleviation and environmental conservation.

According to State of the World's Forests, published by FAO (Food and Agricultural Organisation), only 2.36m hectare of land in Pakistan is under forest cover, which constitutes 3.1% of the total land area in country and is extremely inadequate. Pakistan has one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world. FAO estimates that the forest area of Pakistan decreased from 2,755 thousand ha in 1990 to 2,361 thousand ha in 2000, with annual decline of 39 thousand hectares.