‘Govts must collaborate to tap marine resources’

WWF-P has proposed a project which can help achieve this goal.

KARACHI:

Some experts agree that regional collaboration is required to utilise the diverse resource that lie within the waters of the Arabian Sea.

At the closing session of a three-day workshop on marine resources organised by World Wide Fund for Nature - Pakistan (WWF-P), they said that cooperation can yield better results than countries working independently.

Dr Ejaz Ahmad, WWF-P’s senior director, said that his organisation has proposed a project for the joint management of marine resources. Tooraj Valinassab, a senior researcher from Iran, said that about 15,000 shipping operations are completed in the Persian Gulf each year and are a threat to the area’s marine ecology.



Valinassab then pointed out that each country manages fishing activities separately, but for better management, collaboration across borders is needed. Another issue raised during the workshop was the unsafe waters of Somalia, where pirates terrorise ships and have become an international concern.

Moazzam Khan, a technical adviser of WWF-P, delivered a presentation on this matter on behalf of Ahmed Mohamed Iman, the director general of fisheries and environment at the Ministry of National Resources in Somalia. He said that Somalia does not have the capacity to completely monitor and safeguard its coastal areas from these illegal vessels.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 20^th, 2013.