KARACHI: Environmental aspects of uplift plans emphasized
KARACHI, March 26: Speakers at a provincial roundtable meeting on incorporating environment into Pakistan’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper on Wednesday stressed the need for reviewing all initiatives and plans keeping in view environment and sustainability considerations as environmental degradation was stated to be the main contributor to increasing poverty.
They said that all mega projects executed without environmental considerations had always caused depletion of natural resources and consequently added to poverty.
The meeting was organized by the provincial planning and development department and the IUCN to formulate recommendations to be presented at the National Policy Forum, Islamabad.
Additional Chief Secretary (Planning and Development) Ghulam Sarwar Kherro dwelt on issues of river water shortage, persistent drought, sea intrusion, etc., and said the ministry of food and agriculture had calculated that this season wheat production in Sindh would be 20 per cent less due to water shortage and drought.
He emphasized the need for devising an action plan and added that all the development schemes, including rural development, health, sanitation, water supply, education, etc., should be linked to environmental considerations.
Hashim Leghari, chairman of the chief minister’s inspection team, referring to Thal canal as a disputed project opposed by Sindh, said that such projects should be reviewed. The provincial government had already submitted several proposals to the federal government that included construction of small dams, provision of water to the Indus delta and development of renewable energy resources, he added.
Mr Leghari said that due to no discharge of water into the delta, sea intrusion had increased, rendering barren over 1.4 million acres of land and destroying mangrove forests and marine resources, which increased poverty manifold.
Secretary Forest and Wildlife Shamsul Haq Memon described water shortage as the main cause for desertification in Sindh.
Dr Sono Mal of Thardeep — an NGO — working in Thar desert area, stressed environmental consideration of mega projects and referred to Thar coal project which, according to him, would affect 52 villages, their 40,000 inhabitants, livestock and over 300 wells in the 900sq kilometre area specified for coal project.
Gul Najam Jami, head of the Policy and Constituency, IUCN, said desertification was increasing at an alarming rate because the timber mafia — not the poor man — was involved in large scale deforestation. He stressed the importance of conservation of natural resources, which contributed 45 per cent to national income, 60 per cent towards employment and 75 per cent to foreign exchange earnings.
Other speakers pointed out that despite its economic benefits, only around one per cent of government expenditures was devoted to environmental management.
The decline of environmental resources was said to cause direct economic costs in terms of preventive or aversive expenditures. Situation in Pakistan was said to be the classic example where approximately an average of four per cent of the entire public sector development programmes expenditures was on drainage and reclamation of waterlogged and saline agricultural lands, yet it was only marginally addressed.
Good governance with major emphasis on efficient law and order situation in all parts of the province, application of indigenous strategies to prevent environmental degradation and exposure of crops to a wide range of diseases were also among the issues raised on the occasion.—PPI/APP
