Forestry in Baluchistan

Abstract

THOSE who have visited Baluchistan, even if 1 such a visit was confined to Quetta only, will know that most of the country, the total area of which is 126,000 square miles, of which 53,000 square miles are under British administration, is mountainous with broad upland valleys and that there is a striking lack of trees and a general absence of vegetation. Barren, sunburnt, rugged hills scored by rocky precipitous gorges, the slopes with scattered dots representing juniper or olive stunted trees, alternate with bare stony plains. Parts of this country, as is the case with the adjacent Seistan and Iran, are fertile enough once water can be brought to them. The rainfall is low, 5–15 in. (the latter in the highlands), but is not so deficient that it could not support, and did once support, a better type of vegetation. Examples are noted of forests having disappeared within the last fifty years, notably around Quetta and near the railway, around Fort Sandeman and Loralai, near Tomagh State Forest, and so forth. It is held that desert conditions are advancing from the west and that these conditions are due to the improvident and unchecked habits and actions of the population-felling, lopping, bark stripping, and excessive and continuous goat browsing, in which the nomads are probably the worst offenders. Erosion is very severe, and one stream which has been under observation is reported as carrying away as much as 450 tons of sail in an hour. Many of these facts have been known for the last three or four decades, but they have never received really serious attention by the administration, and such forest service as there has been has been negligible and of inferior status.