KARACHI, March 12: A large number of children, accompanied by their parents, visited the day-long WWF Nature Carnival organized on the spacious lawns of the PAF Museum on Sunday.

Over 70 private and more than 15 government schools participated in the nature carnival. They had set up over a 100 stalls where students exhibited various models, which they had prepared on various themes prescribed by the organizers.

Five themes highlighting different environmental as well as nature conservation issues for the carnival were: Fresh Water Turtles and Marine Turtles; Plastic Waste and its Management; Human and Leopard Conflict (Galiyat, Pakistan); Causes and Spread of Bird Flu; Nature Conservation and Natural Disasters.

Students, at their stalls, explained to visitors the lifecycle of marine turtles and the numerous threats they faced due to human and other predators’ activities. One of the reasons was also the fast shrinking sandy space of their nesting beaches at Hawkesbay and Sandspit.

At other stalls, the students explained the hazards of the usage of plastics and other synthetic compounds and urged visitors to use easily biodegradable things rather than goods that were not degradable and polluted the soil in the process.

But if plastics were used, efforts should be made for disposing them off in a way that it could be recycled to minimize its affects on the environment, they educated.

Sindh Environment Minister Noman Saigol distributed prizes among the winning schools.

The City School Gulshan Campus was declared first for overall performance and stalls, and the Habib Public School and Falconhouse Grammar School Campus 2 were declared second and third respectively. Shields were given to all participating schools.

Mr Saigol, Dr Ejaz Ahmad of the WWF and Feroz Rizvi of the ICI, on the occasion, urged the audience to ensure that they disposed of their waste in an environment-friendly way so that it caused minimum harm to the fragile ecosystem.