A drop of water in saline times

HYDERABAD: Elderly persons could not understand why lush green groves and tall trees, standing around villages and agricultural fields disappeared unimaginably one after the other.
During the recent visit to Village Yar Muhammad Lashari, Tando Muhammad Khan district, some villagers linked it to the increasing sea intrusion, affecting the underground water, which is causing this loss of ecology. Some others guessed the cyclone 1999, which hit the coastal areas of Sindh and might have contributed to the destruction of soil fertility and drying plants. While a few elders were of the opinion that it was the effect of the Indian Gujarat’s earthquake in January 2001, which also shook parts of southern Sindh.
Then these people had experienced devastating floods in 2011 and they cannot imagine the colossal loss to them in the shape of damaged poorly built shelters and ruined standing crops. All families stayed at the banks of nearby canal with their livestock for several months.
The communities of this area, falling at the tail end zone of Tando Muhammad Khan district, bordering Badin district, fear they may lose water, fertile land and all other income sources sooner or later, because they live in a disaster zone.
The village, comprising 250 houses was covered with tall and lush green trees, like babul, neem, brush trees and other indigenous plants. Now there are some scattered eucalyptus along the streets and canal bank and alien shrubs in the courtyards.
They claim to have been rich, owning pieces of family lands and livestock, like buffalos, cows, goats and camels. Selling milk was their alternate source of income besides cultivation of paddy, wheat, cotton, and sunflower. But they said now they receive smaller products of crops due to increasing salinity.
Ramza Lashari, a farmer said he had about one dozen buffalos and used to produce more than 80 litres milk daily for the market, earning enough money. He said the villagers used to produce more than 4,000 litres milk daily, but now they themselves buy milk from the makeshift cattle farms run by herders from the Thar Desert, who usually bring their animals in dry seasons to this area in search of fodder.
Recalling the enjoyable days of the past, villagers said they used to sell milk to nearby towns and lived a prosperous life with their own crops and grains some 30—40 years back. But all of a sudden, their water wells and hand pumps turned saline, their livestock started dying, soil lost its fertility, and the tall trees died out.
Hand pumps can be seen standing in every courtyard, but are useless due to the poisonous underground water. Since then, the only ray of hope for the people has been the water from the seasonal canals, which provides for their domestic and livestock needs. However, since the canals are seasonal, during the rotation periods, their sufferings increase.
Ghulam Qadir Shah of IUCN (the International Union for Conservation of Nature), sharing his understanding on the basis of baseline studies in the cyclone-hit areas, said the cyclone had wider effects in the areas, and perhaps parts of Tando Muhammad Khan district. The cyclone swept the trees and plants in its centre and definitely affected the underground and surface water and land.
He could not rule out the effects of increasing sea intrusion, which has widely affected soil fertility and poisoned underground water in Thatta, Sujawal, Badin, and Tando Muhammad Khan districts. That was why the people not only lost their assets like herds, but also witness decreased crop products, and see shrinking groves and indigenous trees in the area.
He suggested that since the area has become saline, the farmers should plant eucalyptus and Corynocarpus trees, which are saline-resistant and may grow. Otherwise, indigenous trees should be grown in fertile areas.
Asif Inam, Director General of National Institute of Oceanography endorsed the opinion that seawater intrusion may be one of the factors destroying soil fertility and water quality. He said since the entire area is close to the coastline, it is affected by cyclones and floods frequently, once the seawater touches the fertile land, it loses fertility.
Muhammad Moazzam Khan, Technical Adviser in marine fisheries for WWF-Pakistan, said wide scale water extraction might be a problem too, since the Sindh government did not formulate any rules prior to allowing growers to install tube wells. This he said might have damaged the ecology.
There are around 200 villages in only Moya Union Council in Tando Muhammad Khan district. Majority of the villages do not have school buildings, health facilities, road, and a water supply line from the provincial government. These are common problems faced by the people of the entire area.
Moreover, administratively, the area has been juggled between different authorities for the past 30 years. At first the village was under the administration of Hyderabad district, later Tando Muhammad Khan got the status of being a separate district and the village came under a new map. But the situation in terms of development remained the same. There has been no change in lifestyle and mostly the people live in makeshift huts. They are unable to send their children to school. Hence, not a single graduate comes from the 250 families of Village Yar Muhammad Lashari.
It seems the entire area has come under the disaster zone. After the rain floods in 2011 some non-government organisations had extended support to rebuild shelters, water and sanitation facilities for the people of the village.