PM Imran wants youth to gear up for biggest tree planting drive in history

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan has asked the youth in the country to gear up for the biggest tree planting campaign in history, ARY NEWS reported.

The prime minister in a message from his Twitter handle said: “I want all Pakistanis, [especially] our youth to gear up for the biggest tree planting campaign in our history.”

I want all Pakistanis, esp our youth, to gear up for the biggest tree planting campaign in our history. We have a lot of catching up to do. pic.twitter.com/miObo6XLK6

— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) June 27, 2021

He went on to say that they have a lot of catching up to do.

The prime minister also shared an image highlighting how Pakistan is far behind in tree plantation as it depicted that globally there are 422 trees for every person while Pakistan only has five trees per person.

Further, he said that they will be gearing up this monsoon season for the plantation drive – the biggest in Pakistan’s history.

It is pertinent to mention here that Pakistan hosted World Environment Day this year in recognition of the prime minister’s initiative of the Billion Tree Tsunami project.

Addressing the ceremony which was held in collaboration with UNEP and also addressed by UK PM Boris Johnson, Prime Minister Imran Khan termed it an honour for Pakistan to host the day saying that it was during their KP government tenure when they decided to plant one billion saplings.

He said that previously only 640 million trees were planted in the country while the PTI-led KP government alone during its five-year tenure planted one billion saplings.

The prime minister said that nature has once again given them the opportunity to utilize these 10 years to improve their ecosystem as any threat to it will have an irreversible negative impact on the country.

“We are already witnessing the impact of global warming on our glaciers, which is a source of 80 per cent of our water supply,” he said adding that their meltdown has led to water shortages, with provinces blaming each other for water theft.