What i meant from indus belt is that most of the country is not barren. And we surely have got enough unused land on the indus belt to plant trees. Not necessarily have to use agricultural land for it.
Yes we have alot of land which is barren, we have a lot of mouths to feed we also have a lot of people who are homeless....Once you plant forests....most of them will be chopped by the needy...
Another point is...Most of the soil is fertile for SOME type of crops not all....And growing trees is not an easy task...
In Africa it was achieved by involving the locals and telling the benefits and then the locals took care of the trees themselves (without need for extra paid people), patrolling for illegal loggers....
No idea why no one has picked up this idea of educating the locals...and giving them responsibilities....
In Europe families which use their personal land for forest or tree farming or something similar are paid some money or given some tax relaxation...sadly taxes dont apply to Pakistan as many with barren land dont pay taxes hence this may not be useful...
We dont have to grow trees that require extensive hydration. Why not go for trees that thrive in arid climate such as palm trees or desert willow trees. We can plant these further away from the agricultural belt and still this will be a huge boost for the ecology of our country providing cleaner air and if regulated correctly lumber as well.
Well 1stly, not much research has been done on Pakistani vegetation (I mean some has been done but it is not enough)
...Hence what grows well is not really easy until and unless you follow whatever is already locally growing.
2ndly, many of the local trees are adapted to the climate and hence growing them would be cheaper than experimenting with imported stuff
3rdly, I dont know about you but ornamental trees dont make a forest...And yes palm trees now a days are ornamental and rarely natural!
4thly, according to conservation theories, foreign (invader species) can out compete the locals which might lead the invasive species to out compete (because new species might not attract herbivores which are already used to the local tree and adapted to them) the locals and we may loose gene pool in such a process....