World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Pakistan, launched two reports on climate change and its impacts on human life, animals, creeks, land, crops etc in coastal areas of the country. The reports which were presented during a workshop here at a local hotel the other day included: 'Better Adaptation Practices in the Indian Ocean Basin' by Dr Daanish Mustafa and Lauren E Reid of King's College, London and 'Socio-economic Baseline of Pakistani's Coastal Areas' by WWF-Pakistan.
The WWF plans to complete a series of such studies by the end of this year, which have been designed to empower the stakeholders. Different theses were presented during the workshop including 'Food Security and Climate Change in Balochistan', 'National Climate Change Policy', 'Impacts of Climate Change on Coastal Communities' and 'Hazard Hotspots in Sindh'.
Mohammed Hanif Pathan and Shamsul Haq Memon of the Sindh Coastal Development Authority (SCDA) and Tanveer Arif of the Society for Conservation and Protection of the Environment (SCOPE), shared their thoughts on some key issues during the opening and concluding sessions of the workshop.
Representatives of Forest and Wildlife Department, Agriculture Department, Sindh Irrigation Development Authority (SIDA), Planning and Development Department and CSO including the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Friends of Indus Forum and Shirkat Gah attended the programme.