Conserving ecosystem: Mountain festival concludes at Lok Virsa

Three int’l mountain films were screened; students take part in painting competition.

ISLAMABAD: Visitors and the partners of the eight-day long fourth edition of the Pakistan Mountain Festival, pledged to keep disseminating the message of mountain conservation, and play their role in the mountain cultural mainstreaming.  

In its concluding session on Sunday evening at the Lok Virsa, Shakarparian, amidst thrilling music tunes from Chitral, Kalash, Hunza, Gilgit, and Baltistan.

Musicians and singers from the highlands of northern Pakistan enthralled visitors in the day-long performances that ended with a combined music gala at the Lok Virsa open air. The performances made the youth sway and dance. The services of the festival partners were also recognised and appreciated at the concluding ceremony that was part of the music gala.

Three international mountain films were screened Saturday evening to educate and inform people living downstream about the high altitude mountaineering, challenges of climate change confronting the mountains and its communities. The clips of the recent “Pakistan K-2 Expedition” were also shown on the occasion.

Chairman National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), Major General Saeed Aleem also appreciated the effort to mainstream the products, culture, challenges and opportunities linked to mountains. “Our Mountains are treasures of glaciers, biological diversity, cultures and customs, we need to protect all”, Aleem said.

The Agha Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP) organised a Gilgit-Baltistan and Chitral youth forum on the theme of ‘leadership, entrepreneurship and communication’. Sameena Baig, the first Pakistani young woman to have scaled Everest and Mirza Ali, an accomplished mountaineer, were chief guests for the occasion.

Speaking on the occasion, Ghulam Ali the programme manager AKRSP said, “The purpose of the GBC Youth Forum is to celebrate the potential of youth from mountains in leadership, in entrepreneurship, and in all spheres of life”.

“Today youth constitutes a major portion of the population of Gilgit-Baltistan and Chitral. That is why aspirations and potential of youth are very close to the heart of AKRSP’s interventions,” he adding. He stressed that only training these youth will make them responsible citizen and part of the mainstream economy.

As many 67 students from the different universities and colleges participated in the live painting competition on the theme of ‘mountains and water’. The participant used oil on canvas media to reflect their thoughts.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 15^th, 2014.