Pakistan has the highest rates of deforestation in Asia and our total forest cover (2.4% - 5%) is rapidly decreasing by 47,000 hectares every year. According to experts, Pakistan’s diminishing forest covers will entirely deplete by 2025. Apart from endangering several tree and animal species, heavy deforestation in the north has also accentuated the impact of floods (including the catastrophic 2010 floods that displaced 20 million people across Pakistan). In winter months, when firewood consumption more than doubles across Pakistan’s northern areas, households spend anywhere between 25 to 50 percent of their monthly income on acquiring firewood, leaving little to spend on other essential items such as health and education.

According to WHO, death due to inefficient fuel combustion indoors and exposure to black carbon from traditional cookstoves is the second most leading causing of death. Approximately 4.3 Million people die prematurely each year from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), stroke, cancer and other Acute Respiratory Infections (ARIs) associated with small soot particles that can penetrate deep into the lungs. More than 50% of premature deaths of children under the age of 5 are caused by soot particles and black carbon inhaled from the inefficient combustion of solid fuel indoors. The heavy usage of solid fuels in traditional cookstoves and open fires in the homes introduces a range of harmful pollutants such as black carbon, soot particles and carbon monoxide.

Even the use of firewood in North Pakistan intensifies the regional climate impacts as black carbon falls on white snow and ice decreases its reflectiveness which contributes significantly to the melting of glaciers. This in turn can lead to a disruption in annual monsoon cycles and further exacerbate the devastation caused by floods.