1. Introduction
Pakistan is a highly populated country in Asia with relatively less forest cover about 2.5% of its total land. Most of the country’s forest is degraded, and recent deforestation reports indicate high prevalence of about 1.65% [
1,
2], which was previously recorded at 0.6% during the period of 1981–1990 and 1.5% between 1991 and 2010 [
2,
3]. Deforestation, desertification, and grassland degradation, among other reasons, have produced huge environmental disturbance, such as dust storms, wildlife habitat loss, reduced water resources and increased soil erosion [
4,
5]. In addition, people’s livelihood has also been affected badly, as shown by the prevalence of food insecurity and poverty, and a decrease in employment [
2,
6,
7]. Qamer [
2] asserts that every year in Pakistan 39,000 hectares of natural forest are disappearing. Similarly, 33% of the participants of a field survey conducted by Qamer [
8], noted a serious decline in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province (KPK) forest cover from 2000 to 2012.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province (KPK) in Pakistan is one of the provinces that have the widest forest cover (40%) [
4] specifically in the Shangla, Chitral, Dir, Swat and Hazara districts within the KP province [
5]. Along with the high forest cover area, this province is also one of the provinces identified as the highest hotspots for loss of biodiversity in Pakistan [
6] and endowed with several fragmented and fragile ecosystems, land-use and land-cover changes (LULCC) have faster damaging processes with irreversible effects on ecosystems [
7]. The area of forest in this region declined by 30.5% from 1968–2010 due to the high conversion of forest land to agricultural land [
8]. Other studies have found that deforestation is caused by agriculture expansion, population pressure, commodity and timber prices, wage levels, population growth, tourism, improvement of accessibility and increase of linkages between high and low lands, change in lifestyle and cultural patterns, opening to the external economies and global economic integration, external interventions in the form of development initiatives, and lack of governmental policies and high illegal harvesting activities [
3,
9,
10,
11,
12]. However, the natural environment particularly in rural regions of KPK has been affected in recent decades by natural disasters (earthquake 2005, torrential rains of 2010), fluctuating monsoon rains and rising temperature [
13].
To overcome these problems in Pakistan, the government has made various efforts in the form of policies and programs including being active members of the Coalition of Rainforest Nations (CRN). Thus, in 2011, Pakistan initiated the reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (UN-REDD) project and is receiving support funds to improve forest monitoring system nationally and REDD readiness roadmap. Further, Pakistan has launched a Mega-Carbon Sequestration project, which aims to fulfill REDD objectives in the longer run [
14,
15]. As a follow up to the afforestation/reforestation program in Pakistan, the Government of KPK Province launched the Billion Trees Afforestation Program (BTAP), which began in 2014 and extends until 2030 [
16,
17]. BTAP is the largest Afforestation and reforestation initiatives [
12] in Pakistan by planting up to 350,000 Ha [
4]. BTAP was implemented in three phases. During Phase 1, the government approved a budget of Rs. 1815.18 million that was the initial phase. Subsequently, Phase 2 was the main implementation and execution phase with total budget of Rs. 8217.25 million. For Phase 3, the government allocated a total budget of Rs. 7710 million to protect and maintain the built assets. According to the local government, BTAP is totally different from the other projects that were launched in Pakistan for a couple of reasons. First, BTAP objectives are not only to protect or restore the degraded forest, but also to improve the local household’s livelihoods within different projects activities [
18,
19]. The inhabitants of far flung rural areas like in this study site have limited opportunities for the generation of income, and limited availability of financial support (bank loans). Most of their income is spent for their daily needs, while savings for contingencies are usually in the form of agricultural products (grains), domestic animals or valuable trees [
7]. With the initiative of BTAP, a large increase in the number of small-scale nursery firms has been observed, which is one of the significant forms of BTAP. The KPK government believes that such firms have significantly enhanced livelihood by producing employment and other jobs opportunities [
13,
20]. Moreover, BTAP is a significant source of several kinds of livelihood opportunities that include, increase fuel woods, nurseries, non-timber products (i.e., honey, beeswax, traditional medicines, mushrooms, and edible fruits), ecotourism and other small business, are anticipated to have contributed to the understudied population’s livelihood [
21]. Additionally, BTAP can offer a significant contribution in the development of rural communities in KPK Pakistan. Khan, Shah [
13] found in their study during the field survey that BTAP has rehabilitated the ecosystem and increased the income and livelihood of the local rural areas of KPK. According to an independent monitoring agency, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) [
19] in July 2017 the average survival rate of the plantation of BTAP was 88.75 %.
Like the Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) approaches discussed in the Bonn Challenge [
22], multiple outcomes of BTAP affect each other which aim to protect watersheds, conserve natural forests and develop the well-being of local households [
13]. Due to inadequate resources and opportunities, most of the rural communities generate their livelihood from forest-related products and it serves as an anti-catalyst agent in rural people livelihoods [
23].
Figure 1 shows the thinking framework of how BTAP can reach its outcome to maintain the function of forest ecosystems, local livelihood, well-being, and resilience (LLWR). This framework has been modified from the FLR mindset. In its implementation, BTAP was able to directly carry out restoration by planting forest land and using local communities for the supply of seeds, seedling maintenance, planting to tree maintenance. Through this process, outcomes are generated directly through lines 1→3 and 2→ 3. A restoration program is a long-term process and effort [
22]. BTAP projects aim to restore natural forest ecosystem and also contribute to LLWR, with their specific methods, objectives, or causal pathways of impacts and influence [
24]. Under a first pathway, the BTAP Program is targeted or designed to impact forest outcomes with LLWR outcomes considered as a secondary aim or knock-on effect (Pathway 1–3,
Figure 1). Under a second pathway, the BTAP Program is directly designed and predominantly targeted towards LLWR outcomes (Pathway 2,
Figure 1), with forest outcomes occurring as a downstream effect (Pathway 2–3,
Figure 1).
Some research has shown the success of the program. According to a study conducted by Munawar, the carbon stock contained in the KPK increased along with various reforestation programs and became a suitable site for the execution of the REDD+ program [
15]. These will also support community livelihoods by allowing it to sell carbon credits. This revenue can be utilized to provide a sustainable livelihood to forest dependent households and for forest conservation in Pakistan [
1].
So far there have been studies but they have not demonstrated in depth how livelihood can be analyzed comprehensively, transdisciplinary, and deeply. In fact, according to Khan, Shah [
13] there is a need for in-depth research and strategies on how the livelihood can be sustainable. Quantifying the indirect and absolute contribution of BTAP income to total income collection is significant for understanding the livelihoods of rural communities, the wellbeing implications of degraded natural assets, the poverty and disparity level, and the design of efficient developmental and conservation strategies [
13]. The analysis of sustainable livelihood framework issued by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) can be the right choice [
25]. Scope, objectives, and significances for development is way of thinking about livelihoods approach, which has been extensively applied in ecosystem studies [
1,
12,
25]. Though, we have not observed any research that takes into account the effects of BTAP on the development of livelihood of poor rural communities, in Pakistan. Based on these opinions, the current research empirically evaluated the impacts of BTAP on the rural communities’ livelihood.
The remaining paper is organized as:
Section 2 explains the conceptual framework.
Section 3 defines the materials and methods of the study.
Section 4 discusses the study results and finally,
Section 5, highlights study limitations and provides recommendations for future research with conclusions.
2. Sustainable Livelihood Conceptual Framework
The sustainable rural livelihood framework (SLF) is a theoretical framework with a complete holistic and interdisciplinary perspective, by which DFID addresses employees’ involvements in beneficiary countries that covers the several dimension of livelihood and the extensive level of socioeconomic and other factors which contribute to it (Adato and Meinzen-Dick, 2002). This framework analyzes livelihood activities, people’s access to resources, causes of poverty, and their relationships [
26,
27]. The focus in SLF is a household’s status and to investigate ecological, economic and social factors which influence their potentiality to build sustainable livelihood approaches. Furthermore, SLF not only analyses incomes and consumption but also provides a good understanding about poverty and to improve living standard [
28]. SLF is based on a largely qualitative approach that identifies the vulnerabilities of different groups to shocks and stresses through an analysis of their capital assets. According to the concept, within the framework of prevailing polices and a range of vulnerabilities and organizations and methods, a household selects different strategies of livelihood based on the assets that have been available, which results in certain livelihood outcomes which then feed back into the assets and improved livelihoods [
29,
30,
31,
32].
Figure 2 below presents a theoretical model about BTAP SLF and defines a brief description of the livelihood strategies, assets and livelihood outcomes.
Most examples of livelihoods-based analysis can be found in developing countries. In the last few decades, the SLF has come under consideration by researchers. According to this framework, an individual’s access to capital assets, their capability to generate livelihood strategies by the combination of various capital assets, and the power to enlarge their asset base following the communication with other actors [
33,
34,
35] constitutes an individual’s livelihood. Five types of capital assets are included: human capital, financial capital, physical capital, social capital, and natural capital, and others all basics elements. All of these are deeply interlinked (Pandey, 2005) and are essential for a sustainable rural livelihoods [
36,
37,
38]. The existing study uses this five-capital assets framework for evaluating the impact of BTAP on the livelihood of a rural community. Many studies have thus investigated whether or not forest resources enhance rural livelihoods [
38].
Human capital refers to the knowledge, education, training, and the capability to do work in excellent health that empower individuals to follow livelihood strategies [
39,
40,
41].
Financial capital defines the economic resources that are obligatory by an individual to meet livelihood goals. These may include employment, savings, income, etc. [
36,
42,
43].
Physical capital comprises basic infrastructures such as transport, market access and goods which are essential for promoting and supporting rural livelihood. [
29,
44,
45].
Social capital represents the features of a social organization that serve to coordinate actions. These are social resources individuals draw on in search of livelihood objectives and include decision-making power, cooperation, and social prestige [
46,
47,
48].
Natural capital includes the natural reserves that are essential contributions for the poor households and from which livelihood is generally derived. It ranges from both tangibles to intangible goods, such as air quality, soil quality, biodiversity and saline and lodging for a healthy environment [
36,
37].
To sustain well-being and adaptive capability, a household is expected to need these five capitals in a balanced amount [
49]. The creation of livelihood assets may improve the ability of households to give a timely response to shocks. The SLF also provides the variety of assets that households use for improving their livelihoods [
50] and trying to understand the fluctuating arrangements of events of livelihood in a historical and changing background [
51].
The SLF offers an innovative technique for establishing indicators of forest program. As Carney [
25] state that, “The capital assets process to measure livelihoods is a suitable organizing standard principle for the selection of indicators’ to evaluate the forest impact on rural households’ livelihood.” It ensures that quite a few indicators are considered, including social, material, and natural components that are likely to assist in examining the effect on the forest.
Finally, BTAP in the shape of privately owned nurseries, enhancing (NTFP) non-timber forest products (Honey bees box) is the major source of sustainable rural household livelihoods [
33]. Based on the literatures, we evaluate this assessment with including local, individual ideas of livelihood in indicators. Further, to examine the impact of BTAP on the livelihood of rural household the indicators were translated with quantitative questions to ask local surveyed households. Responses for the five livelihood capitals were aggregated for all and each BTAP household. This process is shown below in
Figure 2 and further explained in the data analysis section. The methods used in this paper focus on assessing the impact of BTAP on the rural community livelihood. Using the five capital assets of livelihood enabled us to compare and contrast the livelihood capitals between households and examine the effect of BTAP on rural livelihood. In the current study we used a sustainable livelihoods technique to assess the impacts of BTAP on local rural households’ livelihoods because it has been extensively used [
33,
34,
36,
37].
5. Conclusions and Policy Implications
There is lack of numerical evidence for the role of forest resources in rural livelihood, income and poverty reduction in Pakistan. Using a micro-econometric approach with household primary survey data from districts Shangla and Lower Dir of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, the current study has attempted to assess the influence of BTAP on household livelihoods and poverty reduction. Notably, this study makes a significant contribution to the present literature on forestry economics by evaluating the impacts of BTAP on rural poverty reduction and improve rural livelihood.
The main findings of the study are these. First, BTAP was positively linked with rural livelihood in two districts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Second, by applying the five livelihood capital assets from the SLF as a method for organizing indicators, this study found that households that participated in BTAP earn higher incomes and possess more assets than households that those thast did not participate in BTAP. Our findings are accord to those in previous research of china which suggest that afforestation/reforestation programs are associate with local livelihood and poverty reduction [
59,
61]. Similarly, people connected with BTAP reported a higher rating of enterprises for their livelihoods. The results are significant for several extents of sustainable livelihood and indicate significant impacts of BTAP on human, financial, physical, social, and natural capital. Quantitatively, the effect of BTAP on physical capital and natural capital are stronger than other capitals.
This article calls for more comprehensive experiential evidence about BTAP on poverty alleviation and rural community livelihoods. The present study contributes to the literature in the following three areas. First, it provides direct evidence of the strong association between BTAP and poverty reduction and rural livelihoods in KPK Pakistan, where no evidence or research on BTAP has been established to date. Secondly, this study also contributes to the existing literature using refined empirical analysis. Finally, this research delivers insights into the importance of BTAP.
This study does have one limitation, however. Using household primary survey data, the research is based on data collected from two districts KPK, Pakistan. Other districts located in other regions may have a similar impact, but in a different context. This subject related to BTAP suggests a need for future research, using a cross-border comparative study that may also provide better insight, so scholars can conduct a comparative study. Moreover, these results are based on data collected using a semi-structured questionnaire, affording more information concerning the influence of BTAP on rural livelihoods. Therefore, future studies should conduct longitudinal research. Due to the cross-sectional nature of this study, we could not encompass the characteristics of BTAP, which could be better performed in longitudinal research.
It has been shown that the launch of the BTAP project has positively influenced local community involvement in BTAP, mainly by small-scale forest nursery firms. Based on the findings of the present study, KPK government should arrange seminars with a motive to encourage more household to participate in activities that are BTAP linked, because the wealth index indicates that households connected with BTAP built on existing assets in a more significant way as compared to those who were not involved. This will not only help households to prosper but will also help the government to meet its objective by pushing the project towards success. NGOs such as the UN, Unicef, and WWF may also play their role by distributing the success of KPK to other provinces of Pakistan or maybe worldwide. It is noteworthy that such steps will also assist in tackling the most talked-about issue of global warming. If these efforts can be properly made, it could help the rural households to engage in and improve their livelihoods.