Author: Muhammad Khurshid
AIT Library Call Number: AIT Diss. no.RD-00-4
Year: 2000
Academic Program: Regional and Rural Development Planning (RRDP)
Type: Thesis (Ph.D.) – Asian Institute of Technology, 2000
Examination Committee: Amador A. Remigio (Chairperson); Apisit Eiumnoh, Zakir Hussain, Gopal B. Thapa(Examination Committee Members)
Abstract: Forests play an important socio-economic and environmental role on earth. Exploitation of forest resources within the carrying capacity of the natural ecosystem has always ensured their sustainability but in recent decades man has overexploited these resources to meet various needs. Pakistan with only 4.8% of its total land area under forests is also experiencing unsustainable forest management. Forests were exploited to meet not only the domestic and commercial wood-fuel needs but also timber needs of the local and external markets. Moreover, the local communities as a source of income generation have also used forest resources to increase their cash income earnings. This study has attempted to analyze time series forest cover change in the past three decades in three adjacent sub-watersheds of the Siran watershed in the Western Himalayas in Pakistan, investigated its causes using wood demand and supply analysis and evaluated various sustainable forest management options. The GIS based spatial analysis showed that despite government efforts to conserve these forests, 75% of the forests were completely converted either into regeneration area (34%) or barren areas ( 41 % ) during the past three decades. The Protected Forests have lost 41 % of its cover and the Guz.ara Forests 34%. Results show that the forest degradation stress has greatly increased in the eighties and afterwards. · Social analysis was done using Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) and questionnaire survey to examine the biophysical and resources requirements of the local communities. Wood demand and supply analysis shows that the annual wood-fuel demand by the local communities has always been above 70% of all the wood demands in the past three decades. The annual wood supply from all sources could not satisfy the annual wood demand leaving an average annual supply gap of 5000 m3 • This gap is either filled by importing wood from other nearby forests or from outside the study area. Commercial logging by the Forest Development Corpora
Scholarship Donor(s): Joint Japan/World Bank Graduate Scholarship Program
Note: A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Technical Sciences
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