Workshop on 'Strategic plan for conservation of marine turtles' inaugurated

The four-day workshop on 'Strategic plan for conversation of marine turtles' has been inaugurated on Monday. The workshop is being organised by International Union for Conversation of Nature (IUCN) under its Balochistan Partnerships for Sustainable Development Programme at a local hotel. There are two main objectives for this workshop. The first is drafting strategic planning for conservation of marine turtles and the second is to introduce Turtle Excluder Device.
During the opening session, the Dr Nicoloas Pilcher, said that Pakistan is signatory to the Indian Ocean South East Asian Marine Turtle (IOSEA) MoU. Pilcher said that the skeleton of the strategic plan for Pakistan is based on the IOSEA MoU and also build on IUCN strategy. He emphasised that it is not only the responsibility of government and NGOs but it is the responsibility of all the members of the community. He urged there is a need for community participating despite having awareness stand-alone does not solve the problem of conversation. The number of species in the extinction list is growing with passing time, he added. Pilcher underscored that we need to be radical in future thinking for the conservation of the turtle species. The research and monitoring programmes need to be based on the techniques that provide information for the policy makers to take immediate and proper responses, he added.
He said there are three departments involved Fisheries, Coastal areas and marine environment for conversation of turtles, showing possibility that it might be process of protecting mangroves as well. He asked how we put a cohesive strategy, as there are multiple stakeholders. He said he provided infrastructure and environment of 8 countries for marine and sea turtles and assured for helping to provide structure to Pakistan. Nicholas J Pilcher said some countries do not have fisheries department, some have not coastal areas and some haven't marine environment but Pakistan has all the basic components.
Presenting the example of Malaysia, Nicolas J Pilcher said there were also three departments and it was complex to manage them for turtle nesting. He said the issue is not an issue until spending five years, while adding he has a way of evolving and reviewing plan at every five years. He said the government must be focused with clear priorities. He proposed key components of the Pakistan terming it a backbone of the plan, which has 7 objectives. First is reducing direct and indirect mortality of marine turtle, second is to protect the habitat and rehabilitation for marine turtle, third is research and monitoring, fourth is community participant, public awareness, information and education, fifth is building capacity for conservation research and management, sixth is integrated management for marine turtles and seventh is realising funding for marine turtle conservation. According to Nicolas these objectives would be measured through expected results performance indicators and quality assurance.
During the inaugural session, Secretary Environment and Alternate Energy, Sindh, Mir Hussain Ali while in the welcoming note, said Pakistan used to be a leading country because of its natural resources and biodiversity but due to carelessness has it has come to a very low level. Ali stated that untreated and contaminated water from industrial units enters into the river Indus, while most of the units don't have treatment arrangements in place and the contaminated water finds it way into coastal areas, which is spoiling the breeding areas of turtles and marine life.
The Secretary Mir Hussain Ali identified the condition of solid waste management in Karachi is poor and goes to marine life in the coastal areas of Karachi through Lyari. "550 MGD of untreated sewerage and industrial affluent generated out of which only 50 MGD is treated and the rest goes to seas," while adding the various projects of the provincial government and city government underway for effluent treatment and solid waste management. He said we need a strategy, not only for turtles but also for entire biodiversity besides assuring to provide full support.
While the role of IUCN, WWF termed them a great essence and helping hand for Pakistan. Mir Hussain Ali said that we are not following terms and conditions internationally in accordance with signing the treaty. He said Pakistan is geographically important being vertical on map, mountainous topography from Himalya region, desert terrain and coastal areas. He said the country goes as an agriculture country, being 230-km coastal area of Sindh and 1,000 km of Balochistan. He stated Balochistan has various resources and the provincial government is making all efforts to utilise them and people of Balochistan are eager to move more in this direction. Analysing the coastal line at Sindh province, he said the coastal area in Sindh is started from Mubarak Village to Port Qasim and then from Badin to Thatta. He said the province receives polluted water from up country including Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa and Punjab and it is spoiling the environment.
The secretary said the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KW&SB) has formulated a four-year plan having Rs 30 billion worth, besides the PC-1 of another project has also been approved in this regard in connection with water treatment. He said it is the high time need to have co-ordination between provincial and federal governments on environment and marine life as they are only focusing on infrastructural development. He said we have no focal point at any level, adding once a plan is presented, we would need some actions in this regard. He assured we would extend our co-operation with Balochistan, IUCN & WWF besides NGOs in order to improve marine environment, thanking WWF for its conservation plan at Hawksbay for conversation of marine turtles.
Earlier, Farhan Anwar, a representative of Shehri NGO, said the focus of his organisation is on urban areas and has carried out a project related to turtles' conservation. The purpose of the project was to provide credible and scientific information through GIS mapping and imagery for the policy and decision-makers to plan for the future for eco-system analytics tool. Anwar said the final process of conservation & turtle habitation in Karachi in co-ordination with WWF has been almost completed. He said we had identified some areas to develop a plan, despite there is no document in connection with coast, no research or no update figures. We need a plan for coastal areas in document.
He said there is lack of coherent data, various actors involved including different government agencies, we don't have coherent, (data), it is available on pieces. He said the project goal was to provide marine turtles at Hawkbays beaches covering 70-km area. He added we are working on two areas, the turtle nesting and coastal eco-system in Karachi. He pour light on turtle nesting, project report and its conclusion. He said the main hurdles at beaches for nesting turtles which are huts and proper extended houses are threatening turtle habitat. There was around 823 beach huts which are a major problem for further nesting process, he added. He said in co-ordination with UNDP a two-year plan was completed with surveys and available habitat sustainable model for conservation of marine turtles as well.
The workshop was attended by stakeholders representing government agencies, NGOs and fishermen community including notable government official like Secretary Habibullah on Forest and Wild Life, Balochistan, Director General (DG) Gawadar Port Authority Ghulam Farooq, DG Akbar Lashari of Coastal Development Authority, Balochistan, Director Fisheries Balochistan Mohammad Noor, DG Marine Fisheries Department Sindh, Moazam Ali Khan, Director Live Stock & Fisheries department, Anwar ul Islam were also present besides other distinguished participants. During the last two days of the workshop Nicloas Pilcher will train the fishermen in weaving the Turtle Excluder Device (TED) along with its demonstration.