Plan underway to promote forestry in Punjab

Punjab Forest Department is working on a comprehensive plan to further promote forestry in the province, said Sajjad Hussein Chattha Punjab Secretary Forest.
Giving details on forestry in the province to newsmen here on Thursday he informed that 707,933 acres of land was under natural forests, 370,657 under reservoirs, 144,343 under river forests, while 6,620,093 acres of land was comprised of meadows in Punjab.
He further informed that at the time of independence there were three trees per acre on cultivable lands. At present the number had increased to 17 trees per acre and there was gap of 10 million cubic meters in demand and supply of wood till 2020.
"We need to grow 29 trees per acre to fulfil this requirement", Chattha said. He dubbed year 2004 as 'Green Year'.