Press release | 22 Sep, 2010

IUCN Pakistan Signs agreement with Barclays Bank PLC, Pakistan

Karachi, Pakistan:
IUCN, International Union for Conservation of Nature, Pakistan and Barclays Bank entered into a partnership on 23 September, 2010. The agreement was signed by Mr. Shah Murad Aliani, Country Representative IUCN Pakistan and Mr. Arslan Nayeem, Head of Commercial Bank, Barclays Bank PLC.

This agreement would serve to mobilize the partnership between the two organizations to collaborate in mainstreaming conservation and social considerations into the business of Barclays Bank in Pakistan. For Barclays, this engagement will increase their profile by influencing green thinking and accomplish their CSR objectives.

As the world’s oldest and largest environment network, IUCN envisions a just world that values and conserves nature. It seeks to engage the business sector in working towards a sustainable global economy, through effective partnerships with the conservation community. The role of IUCN’s Business and Biodiversity programme is to influence the private sector in realizing their responsibility towards environment, ecosystem values and sustainable development.

As one of the top ten financial institutes striving towards adopting a green approach to business, Barclays can be termed as a responsible bank with various innovative sustainability initiatives to its name.

Under this agreement IUCN Pakistan will raise a mangroves plantation of over 25 hectares along the Karachi coast. The area selected for plantation is densely populated and highly degraded over a period of time due to over exploitation and neglect. Besides, creating a green belt the plantation will also constitute a barrier to protect communities from coastal calamities. The assertion that mangroves forests play a significant role in combating natural and man-made hazards in coastal zones is well established. They acted as a first natural defense line against the killer waves in the recent Asian Tsunami and cyclones in South East Asia.

IUCN began its efforts to restore degraded mangroves forests in Pakistan in the early nineties and these efforts are still ongoing.  For several years restoration was carried out in Sindh and Balochistan and over 30,000 hectares have been restored and restocked. Under this afforestation programme many exotic and indigenous species have been re-planted on an experimental basis through out the coast. Through the Mangroves for the Future (MFF) programme IUCN has been building on a history of coastal management interventions in tsunami affected countries, especially heeding the call to continue the momentum and partnerships generated by the immediate post-tsunami response. This initiative will thus be linked to MFF.



For more information, please contact:

Haani Jamal Khan
Business and BioDiversity Programme
IUCNP
1 Bath Island Road
Clifton
Karachi 75530
Tel: 92 (21) 35861540/41/42
Fax: 92 (21) 35861448
Haani.jamal@iucn.org
www.iucnp.org