Fuelwood requirement in the Northern Areas of Pakistan
Fuelwood requirement in the Northern Areas of Pakistan
K. M. Siddiqui and Saliheen Khan
ABSTRACT
Intro:
Northern Areas covers 7.04 million ha in the extreme north of Pakistan, forming the upper limits of the Indus basin. It is dominated by jagged granite, snow-covered Hindu Kush mountains in the northwest, the Karakoram mountains in the northeast and the great Himalayan mountain range in the centre east. Great expanses of rocky desert, bare of vegetation, dominate the landscape at 5,000 to 6,000 m elevation in this tract. Over half the territory is glacier, rock and scree. Mountain ranges form a natural barrier to summer monsoons, making the climate dry. Most of the precipitation falls as snow and the climate undergoes extremes of temperature - dry and hot (Upto 35°C) in summer and dry and cold in winter.
Valley bottoms are at an elevation of 1,200 to 1,500 m. Precipitation here is only 120 to 150 mm per year, which increases with elevation. At 3,000 m there is enough snow (equivalent to 750 mm of rainfall) to support grasses, scrub and coniferous forest.
The population of Northern Areas was estimated at 800,000 in 1993. Most people live in small villages and towns in the valleys and lower foothills. Cultivated and orchard land is nearly all irrigated. Recently, Forestry Sector Master Plan used satellite imagery to determine land use in this area (FSMP, 1993). Its data are reproduced below. Since, 4.7 million ha were not classified, so its estimate of irrigated farmland (44,000 ha) is an under estimate. A 1985 census estimated that Gilgit alone, one of five districts in Northern Areas, had 20,000 ha of farmlands (World Bank, 1990).
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