Daily Times

S pecial Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam on Tuesday said the Living Rivers Initiative aimed to revive the dying biodiversity of River Indus would work on restoring the country’s backbone of ecology.

In a tweet, the SAPM shared his video clip of virtual address at the Ministerial Dialogue of United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) on Ecosystem Restoration.

Amin said by the will of Allah Almighty the Living Rivers Initiative by the federal government would bigger and more ambitious initiative for nature and habitat conservation than the Ten Billion Tree Tsunami Plantation project.

“The #LivingRiversInitiative by @ImranKhanPTI Govt (coming soon) is IA going to be an even bigger and more ambitious initiative for #EcosystemRestoration than the successful #10BillionTreeTsunami – it is already being guided for launch by @UN @FAO @UNDP @Unep #UNEA,” he wrote on his official handle.

He shared that the Ministry was already working out to launch the initiative with the collaboration of the UN and its relevant donor agencies.

He added that River Indus’ ecology was under serious pressure due to pollution, habitat and biodiversity loss to ensure sustenance of the civilization associated to it.

UNEP terms PM Imran Khan’s TBTTP vision as ‘Global Leader’ initiative: Amin

Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam Tuesday said the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) once again termed Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Ten Billion Tree Tsunami Plantation (TBTTP) vision as “Global Leader” initiative.

In a tweet, the SAPM shared the video clip of his virtual address at the UNEP’s Ministerial dialogue on Ecosystem Restoration.

“#Pakistan @ImranKhanPTI vision of #10BillionTreeTsunami is once again termed by @UNEP as a global #Leader initiative at the Ministerial dialogue on #EcosystemRestoration at #UNEA yesterday,” Amin said.

The SAPM added that the country had gone totally into restoring and investing in nature. “It has been an interesting journey that paid billions of rupees worth dividends all along.”

The SAPM also extended his gratitude to the UNEP for allowing Pakistan to host World Environment Day during such an important year. “And it was a very important year that kicked off the world ecosystem restoration decade that we are all living in,” he underlined.

He elaborated that Pakistan’s journey started three years back in 2014 when it started investing in planting trees in one of the province of the country.

“The province in the north of Pakistan (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) that set a target of one billion trees achieved it in 2018. After assuming power at the federal level we started TBTTP,” the SAPM said.

He informed that the TBTTP initiative was going all over the country and it helped restore over one million hectares of degraded land all across Pakistan so far.

He highlighted that this journey of ecosystem restoration taught Pakistan one important message that when someone invests in nature; it always pays back more in response.