SHIKARPUR: In Pakistan, the threat to natural resources, productivity and the environment has become particularly severe at the national level. Short -term interests have put great strain on the environment and its ability to sustain people’s livelihoods. Considerable damage has been done to our ecosystem where forests are disappearing at an alarming rate.
This is certainly disastrous for a country like ours, where the percentage of land under forests is already quite low and where availability of timber is next to nothing. What is worse is that local customary institutions, especially in our rural areas, that used to exist in the past and were able to provide some kind of framework for the protection of natural resources have weakened over the years. The result is that there are very few legitimate mechanisms for collective decision-making through which a community can protect a resource, allocate rights and responsibility over it, and plan investments and improvements in its quantity and quality. The natural consequence is a myriad of problems and these include dwindling forest cover, air and water pollution, falling water table in semi-arid areas, rising water table in irrigated areas, and so on.
The environmental problems are too great for the government to tackle alone and to enforce any solutions. This endeavour requires cooperation of the people and they need to be encouraged in participating in maintaining their surrounding environment. This could also involve a mass awareness campaign using radio, television, newspapers, school programmes, training courses, and so on.
Engr Dilbar Detho
Published in The Express Tribune, November 28th, 2012.
