Lots of people around the world have lost their jobs or currently became “temporarily” unemployed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Even as everyone wants to stay safe and follow the quarantine in most countries, people need to work and earn a living in order to survive. While governments in most nations do their best to help out by providing necessary aid, some decide to take things a step further. Pakistan for one, found a way to provide jobs for their citizens, while at the same time reforesting the nation.
The country recently re-started their grand and ambitious 10 Billion Tree Tsunami campaign. That’s right – planting 10 billion trees! The 5-year initiative started back in 2018 by Prime Minister Imran Khan, but was halted due to the nation’s quarantine. The move to continue the project has provided more than 63,000 jobs for recently unemployed day wage earners – agricultural workers who became unemployed because of the lockdowns and quarantine. Of course the laborers would still be required to wear face masks and maintain proper social distancing, while they plant saplings and protect trees from illegal logging and fires. Majority of the trees have been planted in rural, low-income areas so locals can benefit from the work and earn the money they desperately need.
Pakistan’s environmental ministers hope to hire three times as many workers as last year to meet their goal of planting 20 million saplings by the end of 2020. This will mean the total of the project will be about 50 million trees. But, it seems that the 10 billion tree-planting campaign may be just too high a goal…but why not reach for the stars? And this is not the first time the nation made headlines for planting trees, another extensive project was undertaken in 2017 across the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province which resulted in 300,000 jobs and millions of trees planted.
Malik Amin Aslam, the climate change adviser for the Prime Minister, explained that legislators hope to continue using the pandemic as a tool to increase efforts against climate change.”This tragic crisis provided an opportunity and we grabbed it,” he told a news outlet during a phone interview. “Nurturing nature has come to the economic rescue of thousands of people.”
This pandemic has taught a lot of us lessons in life, particularly how humans have abused the planet. Hopefully we realize this once normality returns. Some bad things also bring out the best in many people, we know of those who sacrifice to help others during this pandemic. There are many heroes, each in their own ways. What Pakistan is doing may seem too incredible and ambitious, but it is a gallant effort nonetheless, and deserves admiration as well.
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