Gilgit-Baltistan Forest Act, 2019.

The Gilgit-Baltistan Forest Act, 2019 establishes a comprehensive legislative framework for the protection, conservation, sustainable development, and management of forests and allied natural resources in Gilgit-Baltistan. It recognizes forests as vital for the region’s ecological stability, climate regulation, biodiversity conservation, and socio-economic development, including the provision of ecosystem services such as food, fuel, and watershed protection. The Act’s scope is broad, covering natural and planted forests, rangelands, wetlands, riverbeds, glaciers, and includes specific mechanisms for integrating international environmental agreements into local law.
Article 4 of the Gilgit-Baltistan Forest Act, 2019 sets out the multifaceted aims and objectives focused on the protection, sustainable management, conservation, development, and equitable use of forests and allied resources. It mandates the safeguarding and holistic management of all forest areas—including pastures, rangelands, wetlands, and riverbeds—for a wide array of ecosystem services (provisioning, regulating, supporting, educational, scientific, cultural, and recreational). The article emphasizes institutional development, supportive laws and policies, integration of conservation with local and regional development, active participation of local and traditional communities, benefit-sharing, research promotion, private sector engagement, and alignment with international environmental agreements. It also calls for incentivizing conservation, ensuring access to information, adaptive management, inter-sectoral coordination, and the promotion of sustainable livelihoods and capacity building, with explicit reference to present and future generations, gender participation, and removal of policy barriers that undermine conservation.
Forest management under the Act is governed by principles of sustainability, adaptive planning, community participation, and good governance. Strategic management instruments, such as forest management plans (“working plans”), are mandatory for all protected, community, and private forests, ensuring that harvesting, conservation, and regeneration are balanced and science-based. The Act prescribes institutional mechanisms, including the establishment of a Forest and Wildlife Service, a Forest and Wildlife Board, District Conservation Committees, and participatory structures like Joint Forest Management Committees and Village Conservation Committees to coordinate management, facilitate community collaboration, and promote benefit-sharing. Sustainable forest management is operationalized through strict regulations on land use, commercial harvesting, and forest produce trade, as well as robust enforcement, penalties, and conservation safeguards. The legislation also mandates the development of ecosystem service valuation, climate change mitigation projects, and monitoring systems. Special attention is given to integrating traditional rights, gender inclusion, research, capacity building, and inter-sectoral linkages, ensuring that both conservation objectives and local livelihoods are addressed within a modern, participatory governance framework for Gilgit-Baltistan’s forests. The text consists of 333 Articles divided into XXXIX Chapters and has 4 Schedules.