THATTA: Activists of Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum, writers and members of civil society took out a big rally here on Thursday in protest against promulgation of presidential ordinance on islands and coast.

The protesters led by PFF chairman Mohammad Ali Shah, nationalist leaders Nawaz Khan Zaunr and Yasmin Shah, historian Gul Mohammad Kalmati and others marched on roads from Edhi Centre to local press club where they staged a sit-in and listened to their leaders’ speeches.

Amid slogans of “Bet bachayo, Sindh bachayo” (save islands, save Sindh), PFF chairman and Nawaz Khan Zaunr said that encroachment of Buddo island would deprive hundreds of fishermen of their livelihood.

They claimed that the federal government planned to usurp periodically and strategically the entire island stretch comprising 300 islands along Sindh and Balochistan coastline.

Kalmati and Yasmin Shah were unanimous in their opinion that any illegal construction on this island would amount to violation of Ramsar Convention and ultimately render irreparable losses to habitats, including mangrove forests and flora and fauna and increase risk of seawater intruding into dry land of coastline, thus multiplying hyper-salinity and deteriorating agricultural land.

They said that participants in the rally and its leaders would expand the protest throughout Sindh in the second phase and stage a big rally in front of Governor House in Karachi in the third phase to record their protest.

Published in Dawn, October 30th, 2020