Islamabad, January 26: The President of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) Mr. Valli Moosa pledged to upscale IUCN’s efforts in post-earthquake reconstruction and rehabilitation in the country. He was addressing media representatives at the end of his three day visit to Pakistan.

He also offered greater technical assistance, especially in environmental planning and monitoring and also promised to look into the possibility IUCN’s assistance in safe disposal of debris, which has become one of the greatest environmental challenges in the wake of the earthquake.

Mr. Valli Moosa was in Pakistan to offer his sympathies, and that of the global environmental movement to the people and government of Pakistan on the recent tragedy that caused huge loss of life and untold suffering to millions of people in the affected areas. He also wanted to apprise himself of IUCN’s post-earthquake work and to look into the possibility of upscaling this assistance.

He also gave an overview of the latest global trends in environmental management and stated that while the environmental movement had made some important inroads into the mainstream socio-economic processes, there was an urgent need for a qualitative leap by the environmental movement to become an essential element in all development thinking, and planning, economic progress and social uplift. According to him, climate change due to global warming posed the most serious threat to long term well being of life on the planet earth. However, the Kyoto protocol which was a great achievement for all those who cared for the environment provided a great opportunity for market forces to play their role in minimizing carbon emissions and mitigating their effects. He cited some examples of the successful use of economic instruments for conservation, especially in Costa Rica and Panama. Similar initiatives needed to be adopted in other parts of the developing world, including Pakistan.

He earlier participated in the meeting of the IUCN’s Pakistan National Committee, which has 24 member organizations including the State of Pakistan. There were five other government agencies and 18 NGO members. While lauding the work of the IUCN member organizations in Pakistan, he emphasized the need for greater responsibility on their part towards the country. He asked the members to play a more assertive role, both in terms of contributing towards the global knowledge on environment – especially in providing Pakistani perspective - as well to better integrate environment with the mainstream development process.

On Wednesday night he gave a keynote lecture to a select gathering of Ministers, policy planners, senior government functionaries, and key representatives of the civil society, media and academia. Based on IUCN’s experience of post-tsunami work, and also to a certain extent in Pakistan’s earthquake, there was growing body of evidence that while natural disasters could not be avoided, their affects had been exacerbated by the loss of environmental integrity. The mangroves acted as a buffer against the destructive power of the tsunami and forested slopes on the mountains in northern Pakistan were much less affected by the ravages of the landslides than those marred by deforestation.

Giving the details of the deteriorating environmental indicators the world over, he averred that these trends of consumption and environmentally insensitive economic growth was unsustainable. Under the circumstances it was the responsibility of each and every human being to reverse this tide. He outlined four pillars for this movement to arrest the decline in natural environment:

Finally he emphasized the necessity of avoiding conflict in the region affected by the earthquake, which would pay back in terms of both environmental and social uplift.

For more information, please contact

Hasan Rizvi, IUCN-The World Conservation Union, Pakistan.
Tel: (021) 537 4072/73/74, e-mail: hasan.rizvi@iucnp.org.

 

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