Million-dollar plantation scheme to plant a billion trees in Pakistan

With forests in Pakistan depleting rapidly -- mostly because of illegal logging -- and posing a serious threat of climate change, a province in the country has launched a $150-million tree-planting drive, a media report said on Thursday.

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa provincial government, in the hope that the plantation drive will mitigate climate change, has given its farmers free tree-saplings to plant across the province -- the 150-million-dollar scheme would plant billion trees in the hilly province over the next four years, reports Al Jazeera.

Nursery owners in the region believe the initiative will not only boost their businesses, but also bring in more people to invest in the industry.