June 13, 2007	Wednesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 27, 1428

LAHORE, June 12: The Punjab University Centre for Integrated Mountain Research (CIMR) organised a seminar on ‘Mountain Conservation and Sustainable Management’ in the auditorium of Institute of Bio-Chemistry and Bio-Technology at New Campus on Tuesday.

Keynote speaker Prof Dr. David A Norton from University of Canterbury said that mountain ecosystems contained an integrated complex of natural resources that were closely linked in space and time. He said those who lived in the mountains generally depended directly on many of these resources for their livelihood and tended to utilize and manage them through a combination of land-use practices such as agriculture forestry and livestock production.

With these characteristics, according to Dr Norton, sustainable mountain development was directly linked to ‘integrated planning and management of land resources’. “Mountain communities are among the worlds poorest and face a number of difficult development challenges due to specific mountain-related conditions, including limited land resources, marginal agriculture conditions, isolation, and scant equipment and infrastructure. Food insecurity is a serious problem in some mountain regions and a major impediment in achieving other development and conservation objectives. Thus, eliminating poverty and ensuring food security in mountain areas is a high priority of researchers.”

CIMR Director Khalida Khan in her welcome address highlighted objectives of the seminar and said that the centre for integrated Mountain Research, Punjab University, was established on this very concept on July 27,1987.—APP