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Index of articles from 1990 to 1997 |
1991 |
The Kirthar National Park-Indus Highway issue was one of the most high profile and successful environmental advocacy cases in Pakistan, where NGOs and the media came together in an effort to conserve the environment.
Conceived in the early 1970s, the Indus Highway Project was initiated to link Pakistan's Northern Areas with the coastal city of Karachi. The Project was shelved and revived several times until 1989 when the Japanese government agreed to provide funding.
Although the project itself was extremely valuable in terms of its developmental and economic potential, a section of the proposed highway -Nuriabad to Sehwan -was to be constructed through Kirthar National Park. The issue was exposed by the press and led to a public outcry. The onslaught of strong public opinion in the form of editorials, press releases, signature campaigns and public litigation cases filed by SCOPE and WWF- Pakistan in the Sindh High Court forced the government to commission an Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) through the help of IUCN Pakistan. The EIA's findings that the negative impacts of the proposed highway far outweighed its economic benefits persuaded the government to reroute the highway.
The Kirthar National Park appears all set to hit the headlines once again. Premier Oil, an international oil and gas exploration company, has acquired concessions for gas exploration within the park. Does this call for a flexing of some green muscle?
1992 |
If Stockholm was the debut of the environment as an international event, the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio, often referred to as the Earth Summit, represented its transformation into one of the key political and economic issues of the last decade of the twentieth century. Attended by leaders of more than 150 participating nations, the Earth Summit was billed as "the largest environmental Open University".
While it may, in retrospect, have failed on a number of fronts and gathered flak for being no more than a development talkfest, it did provide the impetus for the signing of two legally binding treaties (one on biodiversity and the other on climate change) and the agreement on Agenda 21, which is a framework for action on sustainable development.
The imminence of the UNCED (where Pakistan was to chair the Group of 77 Developing Nations) helped the then Minister of Environment muster the Cabinet's support for the National Conservation Strategy, paving the way for the latter's approval three months prior to the Conference.
1992 |
The Federal Cabinet's approval of the National Conservation Strategy (NCS) was a major event in Pakistan's environmental history. The 406-page document that emerged after an interactive process involving more than 3,000 people through workshops, feedback on drafts and direct and indirect consultations was prepared over a three-year period through a partnership between the Government of Pakistan and IUCN.
The NCS describes the stark reality of the country's shrinking resource base and its implications for what is largely a natural resource-based economy. It sets forth the beginnings of a plan to integrate environmental concerns into Pakistan's economy.
The Strategy has three overriding objectives: conservation of natural resources, sustainable development, and improved efficiency in the management of resources. These, in turn, depend on three principles: achieving greater public partnership in development and environmental management, merging environment and economics with the matrix of decision making, and focusing on durable improvements in the quality of life.
Besides the development of institutions such as the Environment Section in the Federal Planning and Development Division and the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, there is substantive tangible evidence of the Strategies' implementation. This includes the formulation of provincial and district conservation strategies, the establishment of Environment Protection Agencies at the federal and provincial levels and the addition of a regular chapter on the environment in the national five-year-plans.
1992 |
The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change aims to cut back on emissions of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane etc.) that are warming the planet. Member countries are required to decrease their greenhouse-gas emissions back to 1990 levels by the year 2000.
There is, however, a debate over the severity of the global warming trend. A large part of the investigations regarding global warming were done in the second half of the 1980s when there was a significant worldwide rise in temperatures. Based on this, scientists predicted a threefold increase in global temperatures in the years to come. But contrary to this prognosis, global temperatures fell considerably in the early 1990s and remain well below the estimated levels.
While atmospheric models may be far from perfect, the issue of global warming cannot be ignored. The impact is already being felt: a 0.5 C rise in temperatures has occurred over the last century. Not only has the temperature risen on average, but the warming has become more intense.
Pakistan is a signatory to the Convention but, like all developing countries, is not yet required to cut down on its greenhouse-gas emission. However, as a participant in the Asia Low-cost Greenhouse Gas Abatement Strategy, it is in the process of developing a greenhouse-gas emission inventory.
1992 |
The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), signed by 161 nations at the Earth Summit, marks the first instance of a holistic rather than a sectoral approach being adopted to conserve the Earth's biological resources. In becoming a party to the CBD, Pakistan recognised its responsibility to conserve biological diversity through sustainable use.
Having signed the CBD, the Pakistan government has been involved in a number of initiatives to implement its provisions. In addition to being a contributor and a beneficiary to the Global Environment Facility set up under the CBD, it is a partner in community- level projects aimed at conserving biodiversity (see: Maintaining Biodiversity in Pakistan with Rural Community Development) and is also involved in formulating a Biodiversity Action Plan.
1993 |
Perhaps the first hazardous material handling exercise to be undertaken in the country, the Shershah Toxic Waste Episode revolved around 2.5 tons of meta-dinitrobenzene cakes that were discovered near Karachi's Baldia Railway Station.
Finding the cakes unattended, an unsuspecting junk dealer arranged to have them transferred to his warehouse in Shershah. The driver of the vehicle in which the chemical was transported died the following day; the junk dealer died a few days later. People living near the warehouse fell ill upon inhaling the toxic fumes and complained to the local administration which promptly had the chemical dumped in the Lyari River.
IUCN Pakistan alerted the Sindh Environment Protection Agency (EPA) regarding its threat to marine life and had the cakes analysed at the Hussein Ebrahim Jamal Institute of Chemistry and the Pakistan Council for Scientific and Industrial Research who found it to be a highly toxic and explosive substance.
Following the analysis, various agencies -Sindh EPA, IUCN, the district administration, the fire brigade, the bomb disposal squad and the police -launched a major clean up operation. The chemical was retrieved from the river and taken to an open site far away from the city where it was burnt under controlled conditions. A survey of the surrounding area immediately following the operation confirmed that there was no damage to life or property.
1993 |
Enforced an entire decade after their initial approval under the Pakistan Environmental Protection Ordinance 1983, the National Environment Quality Standards (NEQS) stipulate the maximum allowable levels of municipal and liquid industrial effluents, industrial gaseous emissions and motor vehicle exhausts. As the main tool in the 1983 Ordinance for combating industrial pollution, the enforcement of the NEQS effectively 'activated' these anti-pollution provisions.
They are not without controversy, however, as the standards -however modest -are well beyond the reach of compliance for many industrial units in Pakistan and because the absence of adequate legal mechanisms precludes effective enforcement.
Yet, with the imminent onset of international quality standards such as ISO 14000 that seek to minimize pollution and environmentally-damaging production processes, Pakistan's industrial sector must start taking the environment more seriously. Unless, of course, they are prepared to lose out on their exports.
1993 |
The Ghazi-Barotha Hydroproject is a run-of-river project with an estimated capacity of producing 1,450 megawatts of electricity. With Ghazi-Barotha, perhaps for the first time, the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) made an effort to study the environmental and social impact of a development project.
Environmental considerations were taken on board from the very beginning, when initial studies to select sites for various components of the project were carried out in 1989. The original plan for the construction of a straight power channel, for instance, was altered to avoid settlements and cultural sites. Other mitigatory measures, that included the sinking of tubewells to pump out excess groundwater and the construction of superpassages to ward off flash floods, were built into the project. A comprehensive Environmental Impact Assessment study was also completed and presented to the general public for consideration before the initiation of the project.
While WAPDA's ability to deliver on its promises and translate good intentions into action remains to be seen, the Ghazi-Barotha Project is, nonetheless, a step in the right direction.
1993 |
The Social Action Programme (SAP) was launched by the government to address the issue of low investments in the social sector. It is an umbrella project that focuses on large-scale investments in basic health, primary education, population control, rural water supply and sanitation.
To most critics, however, SAP remains heavily biased in favour of physical infrastructural development at the cost of ignoring the human resources required to facilitate effective delivery mechanisms. A staff without the capacity to deliver, for instance, preempts proper utilisation of the schools and Basic Health Units constructed under SAP.
The current phase of SAP ends in 1998 and a World Bank-led support programme has already pledged US$ 1 billion for SAP II. Perhaps the development mandarins need to step back and reassess the glaring disparities between SAP's agenda and its outputs and examine the possibility of achieving SAP goals through alternative processes.
1994 |
The UN Convention on Combating Desertification (CCD) is a unique international environmental treaty which provides a framework for collaborative action against environmental damage and acute poverty in the marginalised drylands. A legally binding instrument, the Convention calls for the formulation of National Action Plans and the setting up of National Desertification Funds by state parties.
Realising the importance of the development effort under the umbrella of the CCD, Pakistan ratified the Convention in 1997 and is in the process of finalising its National Action Plan to fight desertification that affects approximately 45 million hectares of its land resources.
A local NGO called The Society for Conservation and Protection of Environment (SCOPE) has been playing an active role in promoting the aims of the CCD in Pakistan.
1994 |
Initiated in the Supreme Court as a human rights case by a group of concerned citizens, the Shehla Zia Case was filed against WAPDA in connection with the construction of a grid station near a residential area. The judgment given in this case, in favour of the citizens, became a landmark decision in the field of environmental law and set the precedent for succeeding cases brought to the Supreme Court on environmental grounds.
The case laid down two important principles: that the right to life, enshrined in the constitution, includes the right to an unpolluted environment, and where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of scientific certainty shall not be used as a pretext for delaying cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.
1995 |
Maintaining Biodiversity in Pakistan with Rural Community Development is a pioneering concept in Pakistan and is based on the now accepted reality that conservation initiatives can only succeed if they provide both economic and capacity development incentives for communities. Jointly implemented by IUCN Pakistan and the Government of NWFP's Wildlife Department, the project has been designed as a pilot demonstration of community-based biodiversity conservation in the Northern Areas and the NWFP.
Rural communities are receiving technical assistance to develop and implement natural resource management plans that are compatible with their own development priorities. These plans, developed in tandem with the local and provincial governments, are intended to serve a dual purpose: sustainable use of natural resources and economic well- being of the people.
In the first two years of activity, the project has demonstrated substantial commitment and ownership by the communities, that include over 40 villages covering a total area of almost 500,000 hectares in northern Pakistan. Communities have shown enterprise and innovative approaches have been developed to ensure their continued involvement.
1996 |
The first provincial conservation strategy to be approved in the country, the Sarhad Provincial Conservation Strategy (SPCS) is the principal plan for implementing the National Conservation Strategy in the NWFP.
It is both a comprehensive statement of provincial aspirations for sustainable development and a commitment package containing major policy statements, with initiatives, structural improvements and bold new programmes in areas as diverse as governance, poverty alleviation, urban pollution and women's emancipation. With its strong emphasis on changing the administration's operating style, the SPCS envisages the opening up of governmental priority-setting to civil society in an unprecedented manner.
While the SPCS reflects current priorities, it contains in-built mechanisms for review and updation that will be provided legal anchorage by the NWFP Environment Act 1997.
The pledge made by the Government of the NWFP to green its development agenda has started paying dividends and a number of innovative measures such as the initiation of district conservation strategies in Chitral and Abbottabad are already underway.
The popularity of the SPCS has also spurred the governments of Balochistan and the Northern Areas into formulating their conservation strategies. And it is hoped that Sindh, Punjab and Azad Jammu and Kashmir will soon follow suit.
1997 |
After much effort, the Pakistan Environmental Protection Bill (PEPA) was put into a form ready for public consultations. Over 5,000 copies of PEPA were printed and public consultation workshops held around the country in the first major exercise of its kind. The results of the public consultations were collated and subsequently incorporated within a revised draft.
PEPA takes the 1983 Environmental Protection Ordinance and supplements it with extended functions for the Environment Protection Agencies, a rationalisation of the Pakistan Environment Protection Council, and new substantive laws dealing with pollution, hazardous waste and environmental impact assessments. In addition, it provides for the setting up of sustainable development funds in the provinces.
PEPA has recently been passed by the National Assembly and the Senate and awaits notification by the President after which it will emerge as law and succeed the 1983 Pakistan Environment Protection Ordinance. Here's to a quick breath of life...Cheers!
1997 |
The approval of the Pakistan Irrigation Drainage Authority (PIDA) Act is a watershed in Pakistan's irrigation history. For the first time, a sizable degree of responsibility for irrigation and drainage management has shifted from the hands of a lumbering governmental bureaucracy to that of the farmers.
The PIDA Act envisages a three-tiered system of water management consisting of Provincial Irrigation and Drainage Authorities at the provincial level, Area Water Boards at the barrage level and Water Users Federations at the distributory or minor canal level. Farmers will be represented at all these levels which, in turn, means that they will have a voice in the management of water resources.
While independent circles continue to feel that the PIDA Act does not provide adequate farmer representation -there is, for example, only one farmer representative at the provincial level -the Act, nonetheless, represents an opportunity for the farmers to work towards a more equitable and efficient system of water management.