KARACHI, July 27: The Sindh Wildlife Department (SWD) has agreed to consider a project put forward to it by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) although the SWD had rejected the same last year, it is learnt reliably.

According to sources, the SWD has agreed to reconsider its decision after the WWF arranged a fully paid up exposure trip for the top SWD bosses – Wildlife Secretary Mahmood Ahmad Khan and Conservator Ghulam Rasool Channa — to Lahore a few weeks back.

The sources recalled that the WWF had first submitted the project, pertaining to declaration of Nara Canal Wetland Complex, as a Ramsar Site last year. After reviewing the data presented by the WWF, the SWD had rejected its claim that the area was qualified to be declared as a Ramsar Site.

Since then, the project costing around Swiss Frank 39,000 remained dormant while the Switzerland-based WWF International continued to press its local office (WWF Pakistan) to complete the project.

Responding to Dawn’s queries, Mr Channa said that the WWF had requested him to get the decision reconsidered, and as such he asked the organization to update the information and data and resubmit the same. The WWF was told that the fresh documents would be reviewed and if the proposal was considered to be acceptable, then it would be forwarded with positive recommendations.

He maintained that the data submitted earlier (last year) appeared to be incomplete. Besides, he added, the department itself was not convinced that the Nara Canal Wetland Complex fulfilled the requirements for being declared as a Ramsar Site.

He said that earlier he had felt that efforts should be made to improve the existing 10 Ramsar Sites in the province rather than nominating a new one, which did not fulfil the mandatory requirements for the purpose.

WWF Deputy Director-General Dr Ejaz Ahmad told Dawn, “Now that the SWD has given the go ahead to the WWF, it would resubmit the data which hopefully would be cleared and sent to the Ramsar Secretariat in Switzerland for the proposed site’s declaration as a Ramsar Site.”

He said that the WWF had invited the wildlife secretary and conservator to visit the WWF Pakistan head office in Lahore and see the facilities and expertise available there. He, however, maintained that the free visit had noting to do with the change in the SWD’s decision regarding the Ramsar project.

The sources said that the WWF had already completed one such project a couple of years back as the SWD officials, who had charged over Rs350,000 from the WWF, had assisted in data collection in that project. But when this new project was launched, the SWD officials showed their inability to collect the data. Therefore, the WWF hired retired officials from the Zoological Survey of Pakistan for collecting the data, which was not found to be up to the mark, as was stated by the SWD which had rejected the project.

The WWF, despite repeated requests by this reporter, had refused to provide details regarding how the project’s fund, Swiss Franks 39,000 (approximately Rs2 million) had been spent.

Ramsar Site is a highest international status from the conservation point of view that a wetland could achieve.