KARACHI: Despite being the country’s financial hub and the capital of a culturally rich province, also boasting immensely diverse flora and fauna, the city of Karachi doesn’t offer the kind of recreational-cum-educational spaces its citizens truly deserve.

Indeed, this state of affairs has much to do with governance that never prioritised subjects such as environment, nature conservation and heritage as areas of its interest and investment.

This unfortunate state lapse has led not only to massive destruction of forests, endangered plants, wildlife and green spaces over the decades, but also deprived citizens of knowledge about Sindh’s indigenous natural assets. Hence, there is a general insensitivity towards nature and environment.

Having said that, a small initiative recently taken by the wildlife department needs mention; the department finally restored and opened its museum housed in the historic old Freemasons Lodge, which also houses offices of the wildlife department.

The museum had remained closed due to poor condition for over 25 years — a fact which speaks volumes about government priorities which must change if progress has to be made.

“It’s just the first phase of the project initiated last year with the support of United Nations Development Programme. We plan to develop this museum into a natural history museum as per desire of PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari who recently inaugurated it,” Sindh Wildlife Conservator Javed Mahar tells Dawn.

The restoration work of the entire building including its old library continuing for many years was still going on, he added.

According to him, the space for the museum would significantly be expanded gradually and divided into different sections, for instance there would be exclusive spaces for native and exotic species.

Right now, however, only one hall has been dedicated for the exhibits which included preserved specimens, photographs and paintings of a number of birds, mammals and reptile species. A number of exhibits have been donated by The Field Sports and Conservation Society.

One must appreciate museum’s great taxidermy work, which included black bucks, a Sindh ibex, turtles, a falcon and a houbara bustard.

“It’s all done by our retired taxidermist Irfan. He indeed has done a great job. Several other exhibits including one of blind dolphin are under preparation,” he said.

About Sindh’s faunal diversity, Mahar explained the province was home to 322 bird, 107 reptile and 82 mammal species.

One interesting feature of the museum is its display of some bird species which haven’t been mentioned in the Birds of Pakistan authored by late Dr Thomas Jones Roberts aka T.J. Roberts, a renowned authority on Pakistan’s wildlife and an internationally acclaimed ornithologist. Two of these birds are: a ruddy breasted crake and the other oriental prantincole, both photographed by Yasir Pechuho.

“A research paper on the first record of occurrence of ruddy breasted crake was published last year. The paper also gives credit to Sindh wildlife department,” Mahar said, adding Roberts’ book published in 1991 was the first complete account of Pakistan’s avifauna.

Photographers whose work is on display included Mirza Naeem Baig, Waqar Mursalin, Saeed Jamal, Zafar Ahmed Sheikh, Nusrat Ali, Zohaib Ahmed, Fahad Siddiqui, Saeed Jamal Tariq, Munir Khalid Khan and Zeenat Bayat.

Published in Dawn, March 8th, 2020