WHEN need inspires innovation, Mother Nature is more than willing to help out. Pakistan’s National Parks Service is the result of an interplay of economic requirements, environmental considerations and human and natural resources. It is modelled on the American agency, and its inaugural programme, the Protected Areas Initiative, was launched at the start of this month. It is going to cover 15 national parks in the first phase. The ultimate aim is to prop up designated green areas across the country, promoting them from their current status as ‘paper parks’. Just as Prime Minister Imran Khan is impressing upon fellow Pakistanis the importance of thinking green, the national parks initiative is being promoted as a crucial landmark to realising the PTI’s vision. It is indeed a promising venture whose fulfilment could lend more credence to the PTI’s insistence on declaring its 10 billion-tree campaign a tsunami. The government is introducing the first phase of the project as meeting the economic needs of the local community. Some 5,000 jobs are going to be on offer for the community. Hopefully, a sense of ownership will also be the outcome of the local connection.

The initiative appears to put the country on the right path towards a better, more livable natural environment. Officials say they realise that this positive development has to be backed up by policy and legislation ensuring greater protection of parks and green areas. The sooner this is done the better since much time has already been lost. Pakistan declared the Khunjerab National Park a sanctuary for rare species way back in 1975 — during the tenure of the country’s first popularly elected government. The venture paid dividends but something happened along the way which allowed greed to encroach on Pakistani green. Forty-five years later, the trees, the parks, the greenery are all part of a sanctuary we desperately require for ourselves as a threatened species gasping for breath. It is a sanctuary within reach that we can no more afford to ignore.

Published in Dawn, July 20th, 2020