November 28, 2008	Friday	Ziqa'ad 29, 1429

KARACHI, Nov 27: The Sindh government would suffer a loss of over Rs4 billion in Thatta district alone on account of sea intrusion and depletion of mangrove forests over the next 25 years if the amount of freshwater released downstream by Kotri Barrage remained unchanged.

So far, 263,272 acres in the three district talukas have been lost to the sea, causing huge losses in the fisheries, agriculture and forest sectors, apart from displacing a large population.

The fast depletion of the Indus delta mangrove also means that Sindh is fast losing natural barriers to cyclones.

These were some of the important points highlighted at a three-day seminar on ‘Banking on mangroves: a case for investing in coastal ecosystems’ at a local hotel on Thursday.

Speakers from India, Sri Lanka and Nepal also spoke at the event co-organised by International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)-Pakistan and, South

Asian Network for Development and Environmental Economics (Sandee).

Elaborating upon the numerous on-site and off-site benefits of mangrove forests and the vital role they play in the coastal ecosystem, the speakers said that though the services of mangroves had been identified, a lot of research was needed to determine the extent of their contribution to economy on a wider scale and the well-being of communities dependent upon them.

“The numerous services of a mangrove ecosystem have not been fully realised as they do not come with convenient price tags. Now, the task for economists and nature conservationists should be to scientifically assess the value of each mangrove ecosystem that could lead to logical and thoughtful decisions at the policymaking level,” said Dr Priya Shyamsundar representing Sandee.

Also, at the same time, there was a need to compare economic benefits with the cost of conservation and look into the availability of various mechanisms to bear that cost. Ownership matters and reasons of policy and institutional failures had to be taken into account for making a comprehensive conservation strategy, she added.

Presenting some statistics in Pakistan’s context, Mohammad Tahir Qureshi, a coastal ecosystem expert at IUCN, said that the mangrove cover had reduced from 600,000 hectares in 1932 to 86,000 hectares in 2005. The major reasons behind the destruction of mangrove cover were scarcity of freshwater and growing sea pollution.

Citing a report by the Sindh revenue department prepared in 2003, he said: “An analysis of losses occurred in Thatta district by sea intrusion and the resultant loss of mangrove cover showed that the district incurred Rs7.7 million losses in the agriculture and fisheries sectors while the losses of riverine and mangrove forests stood at Rs145 million. And, if the supply of freshwater was not increased downstream Kotri Barrage, the district would suffer over Rs4 billion over the next 25 years.”

Dr Saudamini Das of University of Delhi said that the valuation of ecosystem services was necessary to calculate the true opportunity cost of alternative land uses or for sustainable land use planning.

Sharing the findings of her research on the role of mangrove forests during Super Cyclone that hit Orissa in 1999, Dr Das said that there was a strong economic justification for protecting and regenerating mangroves cover in the coastal areas to minimise the impact of storms.

“The study proved that human death toll would have been nearly doubled in the absence of mangroves. The research also showed that people with more immovable assets seem to have died more in the affected areas as compared to people with low asset holding,” she said, adding that villages situated near the dykes witnessed more houses being swept away and more loss of livestock, but less human death.

Speaking on “Tourism in Sundarban: mangrove conservation and poverty reduction”, Dr Santadas Shosh said though villagers’ participation was small in unstructured tourism, poor households were reaping benefits and it was leading to improvement in transportation and communication system.

Meave Nightingale and Tushara Ranasingha also spoke.