Research Article

Impact of Green Felling Ban on Furniture Industry in Tehsil Kabal Swat

Syed Rafiud Din1, Sher Shah1*, Hamid Ur Rahman1, Afaq Ahmad1 and Maaz Ali1

1Institute of Forest Sciences, University of Swat, Charbagh, Swat, Pakistan.

Received | November 05, 2025; Accepted | April 1, 2026; Published | April 23, 2026

*Correspondence | Sher Shah, Institute of Forest Sciences, University of Swat, Charbagh, Swat, Pakistan; Email: [email protected]

Citation | Din, S.R., S. Shah, H.U. Rahman, A. Ahmad and M. Ali. 2026. Impact of green felling ban on furniture industry in tehsil kabal Swat. Pakistan Journal of Forestry, 76(1): 11-15.

DOI | https://dx.doi.org/10.17582/journal.pjf/2026/76.1.11.15

Keywords | Green felling, Furniture industry, Cedrus deodara, Fast growing trees

Copyright: 2026 by the authors. Licensee ResearchersLinks Ltd, England, UK.

This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Introduction

Production mode offers a more comprehensive production approach for the adaptation of Green Furniture Manufacturing in China (Furniture is the need that is most closely related to humans and directly affects their wealth while in uses (Dotson, 2015). Since the beginning of the Green and ecological revolution, healthier, more comfortable, and safe green furniture goods have progressively become a significant part of local people (Cattle, 2010). In 2017, the furniture market Globally owns a worth of 480.7 billion Dollars and is projected to increase by 5.1% annually from 2018 to 2025 (Xiong et al., 2020). Peoples Republic of China considered as one the biggest producer of furniture around the world for more than 20 years after the huge expansion/investing in this sector. Latest statistics from China at their 13th Five Year plan, that there were 6000 businesses related to furniture in China in 2017 that met the required scale and their combined income/profit was 56.62 Billion RMBM which is an estimated increase of 9.3 % (Danilova, 2016) . Only China alone contributed 40% to global furniture manufacturing in the year 2017, according a report published by the World Furniture Outlook in 2018 which is a Milan-based furniture research organization CSIL (Açık and Tutuş, 2020). China is considered to be the largest supplier in furniture related products.

 

Table 1: The table shows the names of the areas interviewed and questioned during sampling in tehsil Kabal.

Name of Area/Location	Nature of Business/Job	Respondents
Shahdand	Furniture	03
Sirsinai	Furniture	04
Shah Dherai	Furniture	02
Maira,	Furniture	04
Dardyal	Furniture	02
Swary	Furniture	01
Tall	Furniture	02
Galoch	Furniture	02
Total		20

 

Alongside China, India, Malaysia, and Thailand, Indonesia is also one of Asia’s largest makers of wooden furniture and a substantial contributor to the Asia continent’s manufacturing sector. It is evident with the rise of Chinese furniture industry that the overall trend of the furniture industry is toward GM in recent decades (Rahman, et al., 2018). Over 90% of home furniture products in 2017 were not green products (Nyemba, et al., 2018). It is typically expensive to produce green furniture so they are not engaged (Fredriksson, 2015). Businesses frequently produce shoddy and low-quality goods in an effort to gain maximized profits, which lowers the caliber of furniture products. Wastage of resources has a significant negative impacts on the environment (Zhang and Zhang, 2011).

In China, high technology is coming in the market which is gradually being used and practiced in the creation of furniture. For the improvement of the process of manufacturing and better designs, and aesthetic look, modern materials, equipment, and technologies are being employed. This is changing the industry and will be revolutionized (Zhu and Wu, 2013). The objectives of the study were to know the current condition of the green felling ban in the Tehsil Kabal District Swat and to know the impact of this ban on local furniture industry and the people associated with this.

 

Methodology

In the north west of district Swat, Kabal valley is located at a distance of 15 Km from Saidu Sharif, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan (Figure 1). In district Swat, the area is situated between 34○ 43′ to 35○ North latitude and 72○ 07′ to 72○ 21′ East longitude. The elevation ranges from 833 to 3012 meters above sea level. Plenty of varieties of, vegetables, crops and fruit orchards are present in the low-lying areas and is famous for orchards and is very fertile with alluvial soils. If we look at the area climatically then the area just falls in temperate zone with having clearly four defined seasons. Winters seasons are tough and longer in these regions, in contrast summer in their regions are shorter as well as mild. In total area 40026 hectares of Tehsil Kabal, 20722 hectares of the land is said to be cultivated and 19304 hectares remains uncultivated. The total number of human populations is 0.4 million people approximately.

The research was designed to collect data from the furniture-based industries within the study area. For this purpose, questionnaire survey was conducted and local furniture industry were interviewed. A questionnaire survey was distributed among the furniture shops, saw mills and locals were personally interviewed who are not able to fill that questionnaire. The questionnaire was designed to identify how green felling ban has affected the lives of the people associated with furniture industry and what are the solutions to improve their livelihoods and businesses as well as to sustainably manage the natural resources. The collected data was arranged in excel format and was organized. The data was analyzed using excel formulas and were presented through various graphical representations.

 

Results

Total of twenty furniture industries participated in this study located in Tehsil Kabal District Swat. Among these, four were from the village Maira and Sirsinai, three from village Shahdand, two from Tall, two from Dardyal, two from Shah Dherai and one from village Swary. All of the participants were carpenters and were running active businesses.

The results shows that 30 % of the furniture made from Cedrus Deodara, 25% Pinus Wallachian, while 15% furniture is made from Querues Incana while some furniture’s are also made from Abies Pindrow (Partal) and Juglan Regia (Guz) with a 15% each (Figure 2).

 

Out of 100%, 80% of the audience said they are dependent on forest products. Forest products are consumed by locals for different domestic and commercial purposes (Figure 3).

The interviewers were agreed that Government has implemented Ban on the Green Felling and to fulfill the demand of the customers, they purchase the imported wood from the market which is quite expensive as compared to the local timber price. 75 % of the furniture industry owners complained that, due to this green felling ban the labors (carpenters) have left their jobs while 15 % said that low quality of wood furniture has less demand in the market while 10% agreed that the market wood timber is expensive and consumers are not agreeing to order such expensive furniture’s. Due to the Green Felling ban, 75 % of the furniture industry has switched to the imported wood while due to the expensive wood available in the market, 25 % of the customers have switched for steel-based furniture’s as an alternative. 65% carpenters agreed that customers are unhappy with available alternatives in the form of Malaysian and Canadian imported wood and steel while the remaining said they have no issue using these alternatives.

Illegal cutting is also observed in the area. 80% of carpenters being interviewed believed the status of illegal cutting is high,15% said status is low, the remaining said they have no idea (Figure 4).

 

 

70% of interviewed carpenters said non beneficial practices ratio is high in the area while just 20% believed non beneficial practices are low and remaining candidates were unaware of the fact (Figure 5).

Conclusions

The first objective of the study was to know about the current status of the green felling in district Swat’s tehsil Kabal. The study had found a high ratio of green felling in the area currently and in the past few years despite the ban implemented by government authorities. Most of the felling and wood trade comes as result of illegal means as claimed by the people interviewed.

The second objective was to find out the effects of the green felling imposed by government. Later on, it was concluded that the people aligned with furniture businesses are hardly hit by the ban. Their business and livelihood were much better before the ban took place but now, they are now forced to shift to the alternatives in the form of steel and mostly Malaysian imported wood that are inferior in quality as compared to local wood. Customers are not fully satisfied. Life span period is low. The prices soar high due to market demand and currency devaluation which also affected the people’s interest.

Recommendations

From the above conclusions, it is recommended that the government should take strict measures to stop illegal cutting and trade. Government can fund carpenters and may provide subsidy to encourage the industry. For getting better quality timber and minimizing import bill, there should be some reductions in imposed restriction. It is highly recommended to focus more on plantation and to provide protection to forests.

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my research supervisor Dr. Sher Shah for his guidance and support. I am also extremely thankful to lab fellows who worked and helped in laboratory and drafting this manuscript.

Novelty Statement

I hereby declare that this manuscript is original and hasn’t been submitted or published in any other journal.

Author’s Contribution

Syed Rafiud Din: Conducted and surveyed the research project and collected all data.

Sher Shah: Supervised and evaluated the statistical analysis of the manuscript.

Hamid ur Rehman: Contributed in tabulating the data and in literature review.

Afaq Ahmad: Helped in data collection.

Maaz Ali: Helped in drafting the manuscript.

Generative AI and AI-assisted technology statement

The authors declare that no generative AI and AI assisted technology was used in the creation of this manuscript.

Conflict of interest

The authors have declared no conflict of interest.

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