CHITRAL: Chitral Gol National Park will be turned into a picnic spot by repairing walking tracks inside it, improving access road, vantage points and constructing public toilets in some tourist hotspots.

This was decided at a meeting of Chitral Gol Park Association (CGPA) here on Wednesday chaired by divisional forest officer Irshad Ahmed.

Later, talking to mediapersons, he said the park was habitat for the largest population of globally endangered Kashmir markhor, snow leopard, lynx, grey wolves, ram chakor and monal pheasants, while its proximity to the Chitral city made it an ideal picnic spot for tourists in summer.

He said the initiative was being undertaken under the project ‘development and management of national parks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’ launched by the provincial government.

Mr Ahmed said spread over an area of 7,750 hectares, the national park could attract a large number of tourists because its climate was pleasant in summer season with snow-clad mountain peaks and waterfalls, where one could see four national symbols; markhor (national animal), deodar (national tree), chakor (national bird) and jasmine (national flower).

He said the park had six different hotspots for the tourists situated at varied heights ranging from 9,000 foot to 10,400 foot which included Chaghbini, Marin, Kasawer, Gokhshal and Bronshal, where essential facilities were being provided.

“Yet another feature of the park is that it was the custodian of two different indigenous cultural heritages of Khow and Kalash people as Rumbur, the second largest Kalash valley, formed the buffer zone of the park and one can easily trek into the valley from Chitral town,” he said.

He said specific guidelines had already been formulated to promote and sustain environment-friendly tourism in the park so the biodiversity was not disturbed.

The DFO said in the management of the park, the local community hailing from eleven villages had been given well-defined role and responsibility through the democratically-elected village conservation committees (VCCs).

He said the office-holders of VCCs would also be sent to Gilgit-Baltistan to learn from the good practices in conservation of natural resources and biodiversity supported by the local communities.

Published in Dawn, September 21st, 2017