Deforestation in Pakistan explained using the issue attention cycle

Resumen o Introducción

This work explains deforestation in Pakistan usind the issue attention cycle. The forests are time and again professed as an important ecological resource and that they can be permanently depleted, and are non-renewable. Forest resources therefore need to be harnessed in a sustainable manner. There is a need for a legally binding ‘world forest convention’, just like existence of climate change treaties, to keep the issue of deforestation on the agenda, to ensure sustainable management of forest resources and to limit their overexploitation.

Deforestation is a true example of "Tragedy of Commons". When one individual cuts or burns down a tree for his benefit, there is a higher probability that others will follow the same course of action to increase their individual benefit as well, without realizing that the collective negative externalities such as environmental pollution, along with extinction of biodiversity and global warming will be augmented. Furthermore, according to Ostrom et .al, "the difficulty of exclusion and sub-tractability of common pool resources (CPRs) creates potential CPR dilemmas in which people following their own short term interests produce outcomes that are not in anyone's long-term interest".

Being a Common Pool Resource, forests are not owned by any particular person or even the government and therefore limiting its overexploitation becomes difficult. As a result, we face the CPR dilemmas in Pakistan in the form of continuous threat to forest resource by timber mafia, villagers who depend on fuel wood, forest fires, overpopulation and illegal logging et cetera.

According to United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization the forest cover of Pakistan has been reduced to fewer than two percent from previous four percent of the total land area which is among one of the lowest levels in this region as compared to the 12% standard set by United Nations. This highlights the vulnerable condition of forest reserves in the country and depicts the need to put focus in the area.