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| IUCN, FPCCI sign agreement to conserve environment |
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Monday, October 26, 2009
Karachi
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Pakistan and the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industries (FPCCI) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for biodiversity conservation.
They will now formulate a plan for industries to reach their objectives without being detrimental to the environment.
Three environment groups — the IUCN, the World Wide Fund for Nature in Pakistan (WWF-Pakistan) and the Society for the Conservation and Protection of the Environment (SCOPE) — have also expanded their programmes which have been hailed by the government and environmental experts.
“Over 2,000,000 acres have been eroded by the sea in the coastal belt of Sindh because the flow of the Indus water from Kotri to the sea has stopped. It is the need of the hour for the government and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to make a joint effort to save more land from sea intrusion,” says Delta Development Organisation Kharochhan Senior Vice-President Abdullah. He said that there was need to conserve biodiversity in the Indus Ecoregion and WWF was playing a good role in this context.
He said that the government should also provide compensation to people whose lands have been eroded by the sea. There was also a need to save the recently-planted mangroves at Keti Bunder, he added.
FPCCI Environment Committee Chairman Gulzar Firoz said that the purpose of the MoU was to enable the IUCN and the FPCCI to build a lasting relationship in order to enhance environmental conservation in the industrial sector of Pakistan.
IUCN Global Vice-President and Regional Councillor Javed Jabbar called the MoU a milestone in the history of Pakistan as two leading representative organisations in the industrial and environment sectors had agreed to work together for the protection of the environment.
IUCN Pakistan Country Representative Shah Murad Aliani said that IUCN wanted to educate and inform the industrial sector about the best practices to be followed for achieving sustainable development.
FPCCI President Sultan Ahmed Chawla urged the industry to adopt Green Thinking and work to
provide a healthy livelihood environment to the
people. He said that this MoU was going to create a relationship between the industry and the IUCN for the protection of the environment.
WWF Pakistan has also expanded work on its 50-year-long Indus For All Programme under which it will safeguard four new priority sites that include Shah Bunder (Deltaic Ecosystem) in district Thatta, Manchar Lake (Freshwater Wetlands Ecosystem) in district Dadu, Nara Wetlands Complex (Desert-Wetlands Complex) in districts Khairpur and Sukkur and Khebrani Forest (Riverine Forest) in district Matiari.
The WWF Indus Ecoregion Programme is a long-term initiative to conserve biological diversity in the lower Indus basin through participatory natural resource management and poverty alleviation.
The first six-year (2006-2012) implementation phase of the programme is known as the Indus for All Programme.
Implemented by WWF Pakistan in close collaboration with the Sindh government and other stakeholders, the Indus for All Programme is operational in four of the 14 priority sites of the Indus Ecoregion.
The Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands has generously provided financial support to implement the first phase in the four priority sites, which represent the critical ecosystems in the Indus ecoregion. These include deltaic ecosystem (Keti Bunder) and freshwater wetlands ecosystem (Keenjhar Lake) in District Thatta, forest ecosystem (Pai Forest) in District Shaheed Benazirabad and desert-wetlands ecosystem (Chotiari Reservoir) in District Sanghar.
The SCOPE (Society for Conservation and Protection of Environment), a member of International Land Coalition (ILC), held a roundtable on the theme of “Corporate farming: A wise development strategy or land grab” in which majority of speakers termed corporate farming harmful for the country and farmers.
They said that it would affect local growers and give benefit to multinational companies expected to establish corporate farming in the country. However, the government officials termed it beneficial for progress of agriculture sector and said that it would create employment opportunities.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
