Commemorative stamp issued on first anniversary of Green Pakistan program

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Climate Change Senator Mushahidullah Khan on Monday launched Green Pakistan Program commemorative stamp to mark the first anniversary of the tree plantation campaign.

The federal minister said that diversity of landscapes and climates in Pakistan allow a wide variety of trees and animals to flourish. However, these suffer due to increasing population and climate change.

He further said share of public investment through federal and provincial governments is quite low, and as result efforts towards mitigation do not commensurate with the rate of deterioration occurring in the natural resources of the country.

He added that prime minister expressed serious concern on high rate of deforestation and rapid decrease in wildlife population of the country, and launched the ‘Green Pakistan Program’ for reviving forestry and wildlife resources in the country last year.He also said the program on revival of forest resources has an estimated cost of Rs3.652 billion, whereas that on wildlife is Rs1.065 billion.

The program has been launched a large scale and requires commemoration at national level. Therefore, the commemorative stamp marks the completion of one year of the Green Pakistan Program.

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The 300,000 stamps will be distributed within and outside the country by postal service of Pakistan. It will give a softer image of Pakistan to the international community.

He also highlighted that climate change is a grave issue that requires awareness among masses. He said they had launched the “Ghar Ghar Aik Shajar” door-to-door plantation campaign keeping in view the awareness required and will support the departments of the ministry.

Inspector General Forest Syed Mehmood Nasir also highlighted that Green Pakistan program is playing an active role in increasing forest cover and is a great initiative to combat climate change. The postal representative said that these commemorative stamps will be sent to embassies and international postal union.

The Green Pakistan program was launched on February 9 last year by then prime minister Nawaz Sharif. The first anniversary was celebrated by planting a tree at prime minister ‘s office on February 9, 2018.