Earth day observed on April 22 with the aim to create awareness among masses for the preservation of biodiversity of plants and animals on earth.
The unabated deforestation expansion of residential areas and over utilisation of natural resources including the fossil fuel is playing havoc with the bio-diversity on earth.
Various non-governmental organisations and leading educational institutions of Lahore will arrange a cleaning up and plantation activity to observe the day.
According to the National Conservation Strategy, around 40 percent of diseases in Pakistan are caused by consumption of filthy water.
In his message on the Earth Day, Provincial Environmental Minister Makhdoom Ashfaq Ahmad has said the government will make all out efforts to sensitise people on their duties towards environment, and take measures to empower the EPD to improve its monitoring function. He added that the work of transport and forest departments would also be monitored.
He said most of the industries in the province had no proper drainage system and their toxic waste was being thrown into wells and canals, which spread diseases. All the industries would undergo an environment impact assessment and be dealt with according to its result, he said.
He said the government was facing problems due to ill-planned residential colonies near the industries, adding the higher-ups were negotiating with multi-national agencies on collection, dumping and recycling of all types of waste. To provide clean drinking water to people in the province, dump municipal and industrial solid waste and to control air pollution were the government's priorities, Ashfaq said.
Meanwhile, WWF officials said there was need to respond by discouraging harmful practices of wasting water. That issue needed to be highlighted at a wider scale in the country, as the major cause of gastrointestinal and skin diseases here was unavailability of clean drinking water.
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