KARACHI, June 4: The day of June 5 would dawn on citizens of Pakistan in general and Karachiites in particular as a plethora of activities, including celebrations of the World Environment Day.

As part of the environment day celebrations, normally, street rallies, walks, green concerts, essay competitions and poster competitions in schools, tree planting, recycling efforts, clean-up campaigns, seminars and declamation contests are held throughout the world.

Though there is no official programme related to the environment day on the cards, environmentalists, conservationists and concerned citizens have got a hundred reasons to discuss and refer to factors posing a potential threat to the environment.

Inadequate solid waste management and improper disposal of medical and hospital waste, vehicular emission are issues that need to be reviewed on priority basis. The theme selected for 2004 is "Wanted! Seas and oceans - Dead or Alive?", asking people on earth to act for keeping the seas and oceans healthy and alive, instead of allowing them to be polluted and dead.

A senior citizen was critical of the overall attitude of the state machinery as well as other scientific and administrative bodies. Experts agree that we as a nation lacked scientific or convincing measures, supported by facts and figures, to overcome any environmental emergency or gradual process of environmental degradation.

It was further said that regardless of the scale of oil pollution, response to marine pollution emergency could only be successful if a responsive organisation existed, and any strategy of response had been agreed upon in advance.

While, trained personnel, tools and equipment should also be available for execution of such a strategy. The draft on national contingency plan (NCP) should be revived in the light of the latest experience before it was taken up further.

It was also stressed that necessary legislation be made for developing proper response strategies and to establish a database on national expertise and programmes on oil-related matters.

Former director general of PCSIR and conservationist Dr Mirza Arshad Ali Beg, while acknowledging that some awareness on degradation of the environment had been created in the country, and also that there had been an increase in the frequency of occurrences of natural and man made hazards, which had seriously impacted the seas and the coastline of Pakistan, called for having the updated baseline data on the quality of all environmental parameters in addition to a system of monitoring so that the changes in the baseline could be known.

According to him the baseline data was important not only because it was needed to assess the changes resulting from the impact of development activities.

The temperatures in Badin have, for example decreased and rainfall has increased during the last 40 years. That is because of the increase in particle matter. This increase has been caused by the wave-induced-wind-blown-sand from the delta that had been shrinking during the last 40 years and giving rise to aerial sand dunes, he observed.

Similarly, he continued that an increase in the frequency of occurrences of natural and man made hazards, which had seriously impacted upon the seas and the coastline required that we have an environmental management and monitoring plan for each institution. A session on environment to discuss the sustainable use of natural resources for poverty reduction in Badin was also in progress.