Pakistan: Kohistan residents allege timber smuggling

Kohistan [Pakistan], August 17 : Residents in Pakistan’s Upper Kohistan district have alleged timber smuggling, as per Dawn.

Dawn is a Pakistani English-language newspaper.

The residents say contractors chop down trees in Upper Kohistan’s forests before “smuggling” their wood to Gilgit-Baltistan and other areas through the Karakoram Highway in large quantities.

A resident Ghulab Khan told Dawn: “The forest department issues permits to contractors through the community for cutting down trees but the latter go for excessive tree felling before smuggling the timber out of the district.”

Accompanied by a group of locals, he said deforestation and timber smuggling were on the rise in Upper Kohistan.

The resident said that though the police seized such timber during the checking of oil tankers and trucks carrying scrap at the district’s exit points, the forest department had yet to do its duty of checking that smuggling.

As per Dawn, another resident demanded the forest department to ensure strict compliance by contractors with tree felling permits.

He said the department allowed contractors to cut down trees on a limited scale but the latter largely didn’t follow permit conditions leading to the excessive tree felling and timber smuggling.

He claimed that the wood was smuggled out of the district through the KKH mostly at night.

Head of the accounts branch of the local forest department, Haroon Khan, said the department received 20 per cent of the income generated by lawful timber sales, while the rest of money went to the community as forest owners.

“When the community is the rightful forest owner, the chances of timber smuggling are very small,” he said, as per Dawn.

Khan said the government recently announced the Green Marking Scheme under which the trees, which were old or prevented sunlight from reaching saplings, would be cut down and transported to markets for sale.

He insisted that officials of his department never harboured timber smugglers as timber was transported to districts and even provinces.

“Police check timber smuggling at their checkposts in our district and other parts of the country,” he said.

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