ISLAMABAD, June 27: The river systems in Pakistan have undergone major changes since the 1960s Indus Basin Treaty as the construction of dams on Mangla and Tarbela and the associated network of the irrigation systems have changed the ecology of rivers and thereby loss of habitat for a number of commercially important fish species.

This was stated by the Chairman Pakistan Agricultural Research Council, Dr ME Tusneem while addressing the inaugural session of a two-day national seminar on the “Effect of Pollution on Water Quality and Aquatic Life” organised by the Animal Sciences Institute of PARC at the National Agricultural Research Centre (NARC), states a press release issued here on Wednesday.

Mr Tusneem said while the fish in the country’s waters were still coping with the ecological changes in the river systems, the last two decades of industrial growth have led to unabated dumping of pollutants into the river systems and fresh water bodies, which had polluted not only the river systems but coastal waters and our food chains.

Dr Tusneem said that it was important not only to produce more fish, but also to produce quality fish. Therefore, all quality problems were related to the water quality, whether it was sea water, fresh water, brackish water or water bodies.

“So this [deteriorated water quality] was a major challenge for all of us,” he maintained.

“We don’t produce the fish properly, we don’t capture the fish properly, we don’t package it properly, and we don’t transport it properly,” he said.

At no stage, from the production chain through the supply chain, we meet the sanitary and phyto-sanitary (SPS) measures which are mandated under the WTO. So the task ahead in the fisheries sector was enormous, he observed.

Earlier, in his keynote address, Dr Nasim Akhtar, Deputy Director General of the Animal Science Institute said that the Indus Water System was the lifeline of Pakistan and with the ever increasing growth in population the country’s river systems were getting increasingly polluted with the dumping of human and industrial wastes and other toxic materials resulting in damages to aquatic life and flora and fauna.