Living Indus Initiative in offing for Ecological Restoration

APP

Islamabad: The country’s oldest and custodian of thousands of year’s ancient civilizations of the region of River Indus is facing serious pollution. The Living Indus Initiative is envisaged to address this serious problem.

The United Nations is assisting the Ministry of Climate Change in developing to develop an action-oriented vision for the Indus Basin capable of sustaining life from its source to the ocean. This entails repairing, restoring and enhancing the resilience of natural resources and ecosystems in the face of climate change App was informed by a Ministry of Climate Change official said on Tuesday.

He added that the Indus Basin was responsible for catering to 80 per cent of the country’s population. It has supported the socio-cultural and economic life in the region for over documented 5,000 years. A study by the  United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UN FAO) on the dying Indus Basin posed various questions that need to be addressed for it to do for another 100 years.

“Indus Basin is facing multiple threats ranging from Climate Change, poor resource management, environmental hazards and unsustainable use of this valuable resource,” he said referring to the study.

He informed that the poor water resource management going unaddressed was costing the country’s economy to the tune of  $12 billion per annum (4% of GDP).  In addition, the Indus Basin faces an existential threat in the wake of Climate Change, which is the biggest longer-term and currently unmitigated external risk to Pakistan’s water endowment”.

Referencing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report of 2013 predicted climate change was expected to bring about an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. This coupled with the increased variability in South Asian Summer Monsoon (SASM) rains causes frequent and intense floods and droughts in the country.

The Ministry official mentioned that the initiative was intended to establish the health of the Indus Basin with heightened urgency and ambition by implementing a series of new and innovative interventions in the short term and the identification and deployment of as-yet-untried approaches and adapting measures tried in other parts of the world.