CHITRAL, March 6: The federal ministry of tourism is planning to hold a four-day world conference here in July to celebrate the International Year of Mountains, which is expected to draw a large number of tourists, official sources said.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) will also hold a workshop on agro-pastoralism here in August.

In October, the IUCN is organizing an international seminar on deforestation and its effects in Chitral, in which local and foreign scholars will present their papers on establishing a nexus between ecology and human livelihood. The factors responsible for the deforestation, like road accessibility for the transportation of timber and the firewood, poverty and ecology will be focused.

The programmes are being held in collaboration with Unesco, MADCP and AKRSP.

Scholars from Chitral will also participate in the seminar on tourism to be held in Deshtik (Russia). The AKRSP will hold a seminar on “Mountain infrastructure technology” in Gilgit some time later this year.

An international Hidukush seminar, sponsored by the University of Glasgow, Linnaean Society, London and Peshawar University, is likely to be held in September, the officials said.