CHITRAL: There are fears that the conservation activities at the Chitral Gol National Park hosting around 2,000 Kashmir markhor will suffer badly due to the boycott of duty by community watchers from today (Tuesday) over non-payment of salary for six months.

Chitral Gol Community Development and Conservation Association (CGCDCA) chairman Hussain Ahmad told Dawn on Monday that 35 community watchers were posted to the national park spread over 7,750 hectares and that they were in addition to five watchers of the wildlife department.

He said since the completion of work on the Protected Areas Management Project in 2009, the CDCDCA had been the custodian of the park and that it lent support to the wildlife department for conservation activities carried out through community watchers.

Hussain said the association was a registered body under the Companies Act and was financed by the endowment fund granted by Global Environmental Facility amounting to Rs4 billion, which was equally shared by national parks of Machhiara and Hingol in Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Balochistan respectively.

Non-payment of salary blamed for boycott of duty

He said the fund was managed by Fund for Protected Areas headed by the inspector general of forests (IGF) and many board directors, including chairmen of all three national parks.

He added that the body’s session was held three times a year.

The CGCDCA chairman said the problem started after the IGF denied due share to the association from the endowment fund and created hurdles to it and thus, delaying payment of salary to community watchers for six months.

He said community watchers passed the last two Eids without being paid.

Hussain insisted in the September 1 meeting, the FPA board approved Rs8 million from the fund for Chitral but the IGF later manipulated the minutes of the meeting and released only Rs4.5 million, which was too meagre an amount to meet the demands as the park had been badly hit by the recent flash floods.

He said in the meeting of CGCDCA board of directors held on September 1, a unanimous resolution was passed announcing that Rs4.5 million wouldn’t be accepted until the rest of the approved amount of money was released.

The CGCDCA chairman said the association had exhausted all its savings as the FPA had not only failed to replenish funds for the last many years for one reason or the other but failed to convene the board meetings for many years.

He said over non-payment of salary, the conservation staff engaged by CGCDCA had decided to boycott duty and leave the park from Tuesday (today) until salary was paid to them.

Hussain proposed that the FPA be run as an entity instead of appointing handpicked people mostly government’s retired officials to it for better management.

He said the endowment fund should be divided in three parts with each put on the disposal of the relevant departments.

The IGF based in Islamabad couldn’t be reached over the telephone.

When contacted, chief conservator of forest in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Syed Safdar Ali Shah said the allocated money had been transferred to the CGCDCA account and that it should be used to pay salary.

He, however, said he had nothing to say about the share of Chitral in the endowment fund.

Divisional forest officer of Chitral Gol National Park Wildlife Division Mohammad Buzurg claimed all community watchers won’t support the strike and would continue doing the duty.

About manipulation in the minutes of the FPA’s last meeting, board member Ashiq Ahmad told Dawn that the CGCDCA chairman should take up the matter with other members.

He parried a question about the approval of Rs8 million from the fund for Chitral.

Published in Dawn, September 29th , 2015

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