Pakistan, in lockdown, found a way to help unemployed people by hiring them as jungle workers for the environment and also providing them with the source of income.
Unemployed day workers were given new jobs by the government as “jungle workers,” planting billions of trees across the country to deal with the climate threats already affecting Pakistan. It’s what’s called a green stimulus, helping people while coping with the effects of climate change
The government’s plan was introduced by Prime Minister Imran Khan in 2018 and will last five years, hoping to counter rising temperatures, flooding, droughts, and other extreme weather conditions – now more frequent in Pakistan because of global warming.
But earlier this month, the prime minister granted an exemption to allow the forestry agency to restart the program and create more than 63,600 jobs. This means the tree initiative could provide a big help to many of those who are struggling economically.
Abdul Muqeet Khan, the chief conservator of forests for Rawalpindi district, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that the planting project is in “full swing”. Much of the work is taking place on 15,000 acres (6,000 hectares) of land near the capital Islamabad, he said, as well as on other tracts of state-owned forests around the country.
According to Germanwatch, Pakistan reported more than 150 extreme weather events — from floods to heatwaves — between 1999 and 2018, with total losses of $3.8bn.
Environmentalists have long pushed reforestation as a way to assess the issue, with forests helping to prevent flooding and providing cool spaces.