Tree plantation drive in Pakistan is a bright spot

Pakistan needs trees and to plant tree February and August are the best time to do so.

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Tree plantation quotes

“If your plan is for one year, plant rice. If your plan is for ten years, plant a tree, if your plan is for a hundred years, educate children” Confucius

Pakistan’s response to the above multiple choice question is to click “none of the above”

Tree Plantation Day

August 9 is tree plantation day, just before monsoon season

Tree plantation project in Pakistan

But I will talk about good things Pakistan has been doing lately, planting Trees.

Also, see

Why Planting trees is important?

Firstly, we must understand why Imran Khan constantly banging about planting trees and his billion tree tsunami.

Surely, he has not lost his mind considering he is leading the world’s most environmentally vulnerable country, with the Environmental Protection Index score of 169 in 180 countries in 2020.

Pakistan this year crossed the hottest bulb temperature of 50 ⁰ Celsius, which is when humidity matches heat.

This makes perspiration impossible and is nearly unsustainable for humans.

Surprise, Surprise!

Billion tree Tsunami

This year, Pakistan has also planted a billion trees, just behind Giants India, China, and Ethiopia at 1,725,350,234 (who would have thought)

The leading countries in the world have decided to plant at least a trillion trees this year.

This is because 500 billion trees in the world will reduce bad carbon by 25%, and that would visibly impact extreme weather patterns.

Comprehending Global Warming and planting trees

When you have a country whose people barely scrape a living with little education, health, and training opportunities, the prime minister must hammer it on television every day.

The message is – Trees will save your lives!

How bad has Global Warming become?

The Earth is heating up with scientists predicting the average global temperatures to rise 3 degrees Celsius in 100 years.

With rising temperatures will come successive years of drought, violent rainfalls, suffocating humidity, floods, tsunamis, lost coastal land, extreme heat spells, and Glacial melting.

Humans have never in the history of this planet lived in such heats and such rapid rise.

We have not evolved enough to handle this mess that we have created.

Some doomsday scientists are convinced that the extreme weather has already come in like we are in the tail of a meteor storm already.

Global Warming in Pakistan

Pakistan, having lost 75% of the forest cover and 50% of the Glaciers and three rivers that cooled the environment here – things look bleak.

Even now, temperatures in Pakistan regularly cross 52 ⁰ C every summer.

Crops are erratic, the only remaining river Indus pulsates between a trickle all year round to a gushing torrent in odd months.

We cannot cool every home, office every walkway, and school for Pakistani people to function normally.

Everyone cannot stay indoors.

I haven’t even started talking about the animals, wildlife.

“To exist as a nation, to prosper as a state, to live as a people, we must have trees” Theodore Roosevelt US President

Global Warming is a Civilizational Level Threat to Pakistan

Besides warfare, hotter temperatures and changing weathers are the number one reason why advanced societies have completely collapsed in olden times.

Some attribute warfare to changing temperatures too.

Pakistan is not an advanced society but is highly vulnerable to the damage that is inevitably coming.

Imran Khan and his Billion Tree Tsunami is vital

So, Imran Khan keeps harping about the Billion Tree Tsunami, which I must say is working.

When you believe in the strength of your convictions, motivation becomes infectious and that’s why ordinary people in Pakistan are now planting trees in droves.

It is for the first time in five decades that I have seen organized tree plantations along river banks and mountains.

Many nations in the world have made planting a tree compulsory for their students, and Pakistan should also follow suit.

After all, the number one purpose of education is to make civilized and conscious citizens, not a mob

Illegal Deforestation in Pakistan must stop

I travel a lot on the various mountains and hills in Pakistan and have seen the devastating deforestation happening right before us.

Everyone is allowed to chop down virgin forests that have been carefully curated by Mother Nature over hundreds of years and that is criminal.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction and Mother Nature is not happy.

Why are Trees good?

I am also a tree hugger.

I love the look of green, stout, spread-out trees that houses birds, bees, and shades humans.

I swear trees around us temper down extreme heat, keep the dust and noise away from homes.

Not to mention trees stop

soil erosion,
retain subsoil water,
absorb bad carbon,
stop Ultra Violet light damage,
give you oxygen,
return nutrients to the soil,
Gather useful insects around them.

Trees give you fruits

Trees give you fruits such as mangoes, leechi, apricots, apples, peaches, plums, loquat, cherries, bananas, pomegranate, and figs to sweeten up your culinary buds.

Trees give you medicines

Some trees have super Ayurveda properties that even allopathic medicine has not been able to master.

Neem tree is good for skin and blood
Bahera
Albizia Lebbeck
Maulsari
Indian Mahogany
Eucalyptus
Bael tree fruit has the spiritual power of healing.
Babul Acacia Tree is good for the gums
Bargad (Banyan) is for oral health
Peepal (Bodhi) Tree for skin, breathing, and teeth health
Amla gooseberry Tree for digestive tract health
Sandal Wood for scent
Drum Morniga tree for water purification

So, Prime minister Imran Khan, I am absolute with you on this one.

We have so many unemployed people in Pakistan waiting for some miracle to move them from their stupor, might as well tell them to plant a tree.

Tree plantation and Islam

In any case, spiritually, planting trees is considered Sadqa Jaaria (perpetual gift).

Conclusion

Furthermore, if you can get the “Afsar Shahi,” this royalty of officer class and elite in Pakistan to plant themselves, that would turn things around for everyone.

“The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is now.”

― Chinese proverb

گرین بن جاؤ

(Become Green!