KARACHI, July 14: Efforts should be made to control the entrance of untreated sewage into the Arabian Sea in order to protect the marine ecosystem.

This was stressed by speakers at a function on Friday organised to inaugurate the information kiosks to create awareness regarding environment in general and protection of wetlands in particular, at the Wetland Centre of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) at Sandspit.

A young student, belonging to the nearby Kakapir Village community school, Marium Shafi Mohammad inaugurated the five kiosks that the WWF have established with the assistance from a multinational company.

The kiosks having a touch screen system, provides the visitors information about the country’s environmental issues. It also has quizzes on nature and digital videos of wildlife and plant species.

Earlier, the speakers stressed the need to educate the masses on environmental issues.

The speakers said that over 400 million gallons of untreated sewage, which also included the raw industrial effluents comprising many heavy metals, hazardous and toxic compounds, entered the Arabian Sea from the city daily seriously harming the fragile marine ecosystem.

They stressed the need for setting up of treatment plants for the domestic sewerage and industries should be asked to treat their effluents and be released only after it matched the national environment quality standards (NEQS).

They also said that the beaches of the city were among the most important turtle nesting grounds in the world, but these were being damaged owing to unplanned development at the beaches.

The speakers said that earlier the mangrove forests around the wetland centre were affected owing to the cutting as the villagers were dependant on these trees for fuel wood. But now the community pressure has decreased as the community had switched over to alternative sources of energy.