LAHORE: Construction of Pakistan’s first wildlife hospital, built for the treatment and protection of animals, birds and wild carnivores, has been completed under the vision of Chief Minister Punjab Maryam Nawaz Sharif.
Senior Provincial Minister Maryam Aurangzeb was briefed on the hospital and other projects during a visit to the Forestry and Wildlife Department’s Command and Control Centre.
The meeting was told that the hospital, equipped with modern facilities, has 12 operation theatres and two examination rooms.
Ms Aurangzeb said the establishment of the wildlife hospital under the Chief Minister’s vision was an important milestone for the treatment and conservation of wildlife.
Until now, veterinary care for wild species in Pakistan has been improvised — delivered largely through zoo veterinary units, university veterinary hospitals designed for livestock, and ad hoc arrangements at safari parks. A dedicated facility with surgical capacity changes what is possible in cases of trauma, poaching injury, confiscation from illegal trade, and rehabilitation before release.
The meeting was informed of the Chief Minister’s directive to prepare a master plan and business plan to develop Jallo Park into a modern eco-tourism centre under a public-private partnership model.
A decision was also taken to install a system equipped with modern technology for the timely detection of forest fires. The meeting was told that forests are being monitored through artificial intelligence, long-range thermal cameras, live surveillance and satellite monitoring.
Early detection is the decisive variable in wildfire management. Thermal imaging can identify a heat signature before visible smoke, and in Punjab’s plantation forests — Changa Manga among them — the difference between detection in minutes and detection in hours is the difference between a contained incident and the loss of decades of growth.
The briefing said a historic milestone of planting 50 million saplings in one year had been achieved, while more than 10 million additional saplings are being planted during the monsoon campaign. Plantation will also be carried out over 1,500 acres at Ghazi Ghat with public participation.
The meeting was told that 285 geo-tagging nurseries are now operational in the province, where a complete record is maintained for every sapling alongside digital monitoring.
Geo-tagging addresses the central credibility problem of large-scale plantation drives worldwide: the gap between saplings planted and trees surviving. A tagged sapling with a digital record can be revisited and its survival verified — which is what converts a planting number into a forestry outcome.
Construction of a Giraffe Café and a Tree House Café at the Safari has been completed. The meeting was told both cafés would provide modern, internationally benchmarked recreational facilities and would serve as a new amenity for promoting eco-tourism in a natural setting.
According to the briefing, 215 women have been inducted for the first time into the Forest Rangers Force, which comprises more than 5,000 personnel. Fines exceeding Rs10 million were imposed during operations against timber theft.
The meeting reviewed progress on Changa Manga, the Safari and other wildlife projects, and directed that measures to promote eco-tourism be further accelerated. Ms Aurangzeb also inspected the live monitoring of forests, geo-tagging, satellite surveillance and the use of modern technology.
Pakistan’s forest cover is among the lowest in the region as a proportion of land area, and Punjab — the most intensively cultivated province — carries a particularly thin margin. Changa Manga, planted in the 1860s as one of the world’s earliest man-made irrigated forests, has itself contracted substantially from its historic extent. Against that backdrop, the durability of new plantation, rather than its headline volume, is the measure that will matter.
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