GILGIT, July 18: Mass tourism without any proper system in place for the disposal of the debris created and left by tourists is posing a threat to the fragile ecosystem of the Shandur valley, situated at an altitude of 12,520 feet above sea level, some 200km west of Gilgit.

This was seen during the Shandur festival held from July 7 to 9 and attended by 20,000 local and foreign tourists, which produced over 5,000kg of garbage in three days.

Atif Khursheed Khan, an environmental education officer of the WWF Northern Areas, said the figures were about the garbage they had collected with the help of their volunteers from Gilgit and Chitral while a great deal more litter was yet to be cleared. He said the waste comprised polyethylene bags, plastic and glass bottles, tins, paper, tanneries, bones, human faeces, vehicles smoke and general littering that created a mess at Shandur for there was no disposal system to dump all this trash.

“Due to the presence of thousands of people at the Shandur festival resulted in heaps of garbage that has been devastating beautification of the valley, the government should set up public toilets, camping sites and dumping sites through which we will be able to collect trash as it is difficult to collect scattered garbage at scattered camp sites,”Mr Khan said.

Atta Elahi, an environmental officer of Chitral Mountain Areas Conservancy Project (MACP), said they had been collecting the garbage every year at the time of the Shandur festival and designed environmental walks to sensitize visitors to Shandur valley, but due to lack of dumping sites and accommodation facilities, no body cared about littering.

Altaf Hussain, environmental education coordinator of Chitral MACP, said biological corridors should be provided to wildlife at Shandur. “We cannot stop development at Shandur but definitely the under construction Shandur Road would divide habitat of the wildlife as the human movements disturbs the habitat. This divide would result in weaker species of wildlife,” Mr Hussain added.

The Northern Areas and Chitral administrations when contacted said this happened at the time of festivals and there were no resources to at their disposal for dealing with the environmental aspects into account.