It’s all part of an effort that started in 2015, when Imran Khan — then a provincial politician and now Pakistan’s prime minister — backed a program dubbed a “Billion Tree Tsunami.” The initiative reached its province-wide target in 2018 and was so successful that federal officials expanded the drive nationally in 2019 with a new goal of 10 billion trees — or, the “Ten Billion Tree Tsunami.”
Direct planting accounts for about 40% of the program’s new trees.
The other 60% come from assisted regeneration, in which community members are paid to protect existing forests so that trees can propagate and thrive.