KARACHI, April 7: Local communities in general and policy makers in particular need to realize that unrealistic approach towards the environment and natural resources has its direct and indirect adverse impact on the national economy. Dr Bhim Adhikari, an environmental economist from Nepal in his presentation on ‘Poverty and Environment Nexus’ on Thursday, at the three-day ‘Advanced Workshop on Environmental Orientation and Education’ being organized by the IUCN, reiterated that economic growth in developing countries like Pakistan was predominantly based on natural resources.
“National economic growth is dependent and will continue to depend on the quality of environment,” the economist stressed, mentioning that natural resources in the country (raw materials and manufactured goods) accounts for 45 per cent of national income, 60 per cent of employment and 75 per cent of foreign exchange.
In this context, he feared that the rampant and across-the-board indifference towards degradation of natural resources and protection of environment was not only casting severely negative impact on public health, but was also leading to massive depletion of other assets as well.
“Land degradation has now reached momentous heights – 38 per cent of irrigated land is waterlogged and 14 per cent saline,” he said, adding water availability had declined from a water affluent level of 5,300 cubic metres per capita in 1951 to 1,600 in 1991, to a borderline of 1,200 today, barely above the indicator of water scarcity i.e. 1,000 cubic metres per capita.
The trend he says is reflected through fast rising poverty levels in Pakistan where more than 65 per cent of the population lives in rural areas and are heavily dependent on a natural resource–based economy.
For the urban poor, emphasis is on access to clean water, energy sanitation, drainage and secure tenure in settlements, Dr Adhikari said, mentioning that poor were also the most vulnerable to the gradual processes of environmental degradation - a reflection of which included urban migration.
Discussing the environmental challenges Pakistan is currently exposed to, the researcher maintained that the issue was not simply restricted to scarcity, but water quality had also deteriorated because of increasing pollution from industrial, municipal and agricultural resources.
Reference was also made to air pollution, mainly from suspended particulates, which had become ubiquitous and exceeded the WHO guidelines.
The forest cover was annually shrinking by 2.5 to 3.1 per cent and woody biomass by four to six per cent, which further aggravated the scenario, enhancing the country and its inhabitants’ chances to environmental disasters.
To address the scenario, the economist recommended the importance to integrate poverty-environmental issues into national planning frameworks followed by effective participation of the poor in sustainable development programmes, combating corruption, and provision for improved monitoring and assessment of poverty environment policy implementation.
According to him, although the exact nature of the relationship between poverty and environment was highly complex, it was but evident that poor people typically lived in habitats where they were more exposed to adverse health effects of environmental degradation, while lacking the material, political and legal power and resources to prevent and mitigate these effects.
Earlier, Nasir Ali Panwhar and Zohra Rehmat Ali, discussing the aims and objectives of the workshop, said it was the IUCN-Pakistan’s efforts to empower communities to participate in the National Conservation Strategy as well as sub-strategies at the provincial and district levels.
The two institutions selected from Sindh for first of the series of workshops were mentioned to be the Provincial Institute of Teachers Education (PITE) and the Indus Resource Centre.
“The idea is to integrate environmental concerns into their programmes and projects,” Zohra Rehmat Ali said, adding that one part of their programmes was capacity building for the environment and sustainable development, which was undertaken through training and information dissemination.
The IUCN Pakistan believes that civil society in general and educational institutions in particular could play an important role in promoting sustainable lifestyles, she said.
Presentation on a wide range of topics were made by Dr Najam Khurshid, Ahmed Saeed and Zohra Rehmat Ali during the first day of the exercise scheduled to continue till Saturday.
Topics explicitly discussed included ‘Sustainable Development and Major Global Environmental Issues’, ‘Wetlands of Pakistan’, ‘An Introduction of Environment Impact Assessment’, ‘Local Environmental Issues and How to Address them’, etc. These were followed by group discussions. — APP
