HYDERABAD, Feb 14: The earth is being degraded because of human demand for food, water, timber and fibre and 24 per cent of the earth’s surface is now cultivated and humans use 40-50 per cent of all available freshwater running off the land.

This was stated by botanists from all over the country at the inaugural session of 9th national conference of plant scientists.

The conference was organized by Sindh University’s Institute of Botany in collaboration with the Pakistan Botanical Society here on Monday.

Scholars underlined the importance of plants and research in scientific manner with exchange of views by scholars from time to time through their papers and ideas.

They said it was prime time for paying attention to plants for research and discoveries for human benefit.

They said many species of plants were available at various places for research.

Former vice-chancellor of the University of Karachi, Prof (Dr) Syed Irtefaq Ali, who inaugurated the conference, said it was basic responsibility of scholars to identify the problems and also resolutions of the problems faced by humanity.

He said the data about plants must be restored for research by present and future scholars.

He said there was a need of collaborative research by scholars for the benefit of society.

He said the plants always help in improvements of environment on earth.

He said the research was a full-time activity and it required complete mental involvement to create new knowledge.

He said the botany department which had now been upgraded to an institute, had been active academically more or less since its inception in spite of limited resources.

He said the conference would be providing better opportunities to scholars for sharing their ideas and views to benefit humanity.

Vice-Chancellor Mazharul Haq Siddiqui said with an ever increasing world population consuming resources at an alarming rate, it was of paramount importance that plant scientists search for new or previously unexploited resources from those areas that have not yet been investigated.

The vice-chancellor of the Kohat University of Science and Technology, Dr Zabta Khan Shinwari said that Pakistan was a rich country in natural resources and that there were 6,000 species of plants.