SIR Bani Yas Island in Abu Dhabi is home to more than 17,000 free-roaming animals, including Arabian oryx, cheetas, llamas, giraffes, gazelles, deers and others. It won the award for being the world’s leading sustainable tourism destination in 2014. The island offers various adventurous activities for visitors, including safari, mountain biking, hiking and snorkelling, and earns great revenue for the country.

Pakistan has about 52.2 million hectares of rangelands that still remain untapped. They can play a critical ecological role and can be turned into a habitat for wildlife, a source of biodiversity and a pollution buffer.

Unfortunately, the size of the rangelands is shrinking alarmingly due to the exponential population growth, house-building, industrial development and, above all, government’s inattention.

It is high time the government thought outside the box and implemented innovative ways to utilise the untapped resources of Pakistan and making a fortune out of them.

Zain Raza Baloch
Hyderabad

Published in Dawn, June 19th, 2021