PESHAWAR, June 22: A three-day national workshop on dry land management and rehabilitation began at a local hotel on Tuesday with experts stressing the need for conserving depleting natural resources in the 70 per cent of Pakistan’s arid or semi-arid landmass.

Keynote speeches and case studies highlighted harsh realities of life in the areas with scarce rainfall and few natural resources. A documentary on tough life of residents of arid zones in the country was shown.

The Inter-cooperation Pakistan is hosting the workshop with the collaboration of the Farm Forestry Support Project, Peshawar, and the Project for Livelihood Improvement, Dera Ismail Khan.

NWFP Secretary, planning and development, Syed Manzoor Ali Shah, presided over its inaugural session whereas the subsequent session was presided over by provincial secretary, environment, Noorul Haq.

Both the secretaries reiterated the commitment of the NWFP government to make every effort and use all available resources to bring improvements in the life of the people.

A message of additional chief secretary, NWFP, Mir Laiq Shah, was read, who assured the organizers of the workshop that the NWFP government would provide infrastructure to implement recommendations made by the participants.

Denis Bugnard, country co-director, Swiss Agency for Cooperation and Development, Arjumand Nizami, programme coordinator, Inter-cooperation Pakistan, and Fauzia Malik, coordinator, Farm Forestry Support Project, spoke at the inaugural session.

In the second session, Martin Fischler and retired forest department official Dr Bashir Hussain Shah made presentation on efforts to harvest water and make maximum use of existing resources in arid and semi-arid areas.

Bashir Ahmad Wani, Inspector-General, forests, summed up the proceedings.

Experts shared their experiences in dry afforestation and range management in the last session of the day.