Help the environment: Minister wants protection of marine life

The sea is an identity of Karachi and we hear about deforestation but are not doing anything to prevent it: Minister

KARACHI: Pakistan does not belong to any political party and our ancestors worked together to create our country, said the federal minister for ports and shipping, senator Kamran Michael, on Saturday. He was speaking at the tree plantation ceremony of the 2014 tamar mangrove forests campaign. “The sea is an identity of Karachi and we hear about deforestation but are not doing anything to prevent it,” he added. The ministry will plant around 100,000 trees that will help marine life, he claimed, adding that the Karachi Port Trust (KPT) nursery keeps 300,000 plants at all times and that 100 trees will be planted every day. He condemned the dumping of sewage water and other industrial waste into the sea, which is dangerous for marine life. To deal with the situation, the ministry plans to set up a water treatment plant. The KPT has also provided land for its construction, he claimed. Former Sindh local bodies’ minister Owais Muzaffar, who was also present at the event, said that the previous government had started a water treatment project and had also issued tenders for it.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 25^th, 2014.