The National Co-ordination Body of 'Mangroves For the Future' - a South Asian initiative started in the aftermath of the 2004 Tsunami - was held here at the IUCN Pakistan Country Office.
An announcement on Wednesday said that the meeting was presided over by the Secretary Environment, Kamran Lashari, while Country Representative of International Union for Conservation of Nature, Pakistan, Shah Murad Aliani and members of the committee drawn from the Federal and Provincial Government Forest Departments, Pakistan Navy, National Institute of Oceanography, WWF, Indus Earth, SHEHRI, Pakistan Wetlands Programme, Karachi Port Trust, Pakistan Petroleum Limited attended to draft a National Strategic Action Plan to make Pakistan a member country.
It said that the MFF was launched by the former US President Bill Clinton in December 2006 and initiated by IUCN and UNDP (United Nations Development Programme), with FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation), UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme), CARE and Wetlands International joining in.
Current Focal countries include those hit hardest by the 2004 Tsunami, like India, Indonesia, Maldives, Seychelles, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Pakistan is a Dialogue country, along with Bangladesh, Kenya, Malaysia, Tanzania and Vietnam. The National Co-ordination Committee was constituted with the aim to strive for full membership status for Pakistan, to enable it to benefit from resources for the protection of its coastal ecosystem. The draft of the National Strategic Action Plan was prepared in the wake of the first meeting of the NCB on October 31, 2009.
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