KARACHI, July 12: Less quantity of fresh water and over exploitation of natural resources are described as the two basic causes of expeditious degradation of the Indus Delta Eco-region (IDER) at a workshop organized by the World Wide Fund for Nature, Pakistan.

The five-day consultative workshop on "Bio diversity Visioning and Eco-region Conservation Planning", began here on Monday. The local and foreign experts on environment said that high rate of population growth and poverty led to the over exploitation of natural resources like forests, mangroves and fish.

These were major causes of the IDER degradation, as the poor people depended comparatively more on the forests for their needs, they said. The speakers maintained that the decline in the quantity of fresh water coming to the deltic region over the years had resulted in multiple problems, including drastic decrease in mangrove forest cover.

Consequently, they said, rapid coastal land erosion and seawater intrusion was witnessed in the past years. The overall situation badly affected the agricultural lands, they added.

Besides, they said that the rapid destruction of mangroves - which are the nurseries of many marine species like prawns, shrimps and crabs - the fish catch was reduced comparatively. In this way, they said that fisherfolk and farmers were economically crippled and the poverty increased in the area.

Mr Will Reidhead, Gland-Switzerland based WWF Asia Pacific representative, gave an overview of the eco-region conservation and apprised the workshop participants of biodiversity visioning and conservation planning processes being carried out in the selected eco-regions around the globe.

Senior agriculture scientist M.H. Panhwar said that the change in climate on the region could badly affect farmers. He said that with the increase in temperature, more snow on the mountains would melt resulting in floods and rise in sea level.

Similarly, with the decrease in temperature less snow would melt ultimately resulting in water scarcity. In either case, he added, agricultural crops would be harmed. WWF deputy director-general Dr Ejaz Ahmad, Dr Hafeezur Rehman, Dr Itrat Zehra, Dr I.H. Jafri, Mahboob A. Ansari, S.A. Ghalib, Faisal F. Khan, Salman Ashraf and others also spoke at the workshop.

They said that owing to the construction of barrages on the Indus, habitat of the 'Palla' fish had been curtailed. Earlier it used to be netted up to Multan, but, now it was netted up to Kotri barrage, they added.

During the first two days of the workshop, a vision will be developed as how to mitigate the threats and suggest sustainable use of the natural resources in the region.

During the last three days, a number of stakeholders, various government and non- governmental organizations, community-based organizations would be invited to give their input so that when the plan was finalized and adopted they all could have a feeling of ownership.

The workshop would develop short term, mid term and long term action plans nominating each group with a specific role for the restoration of biodiversity in the region. Hot spots, high priority and environmentally sensitive areas would also be identified during the workshop.

Four tax anomic groups on mammals, birds, invertebrates, reptiles, fishes and vegetation were formed on Monday for identification of priority areas of key species, habitats and ecological processes in the region. On Tuesday, sub-regional focus groups would be set up to give specific recommendations to each area.

It may be mentioned here that the delta region was earlier considered to be only around the coastal areas. However, during the previous IDER workshop held in December 2002, the boundaries of the IDER were stretched from east of Karachi to Sir Creek in the west and up to Kashmore in the north and the catchment area in Balochistan in the west.