KARACHI – The Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF) would organise a consultative meeting on Tuesday (today) at the Regent Plaza to discuss the issue of mangrove deforestation and reclamation of precious lands in Keamari and Bin Qasim towns.
Marine ecology experts, oceanographers, environmentalists, forest conservationists, citizens, human rights and political activists would attend the meeting. Sindh Environment Minister Sheikh Muhammad Afzal, secretaries of environment and forest departments, marine ecology expert Dr Tahir Qureshi, WWF-Pakistan’s Nasir Panhwar, and representatives of NGOs Shehri, PILER, HANDS and others will also take part.
The speakers would review visible challenges in terms of mangroves cutting and its impacts on marine ecology and human population at the coastal areas and in the city. The mangroves act as natural shield against cyclones, hurricanes and tsunamis besides, serving as breeding grounds for many species of fish, shrimp and crab. Merciless cutting of mangroves along the coast of Karachi by the land mafia has left millions of lives at risk.
The UN has declared 2011 as the International Year of Forests and even though Pakistan has endorsed it, the land mafia has increased its criminal activities along the 129-km Karachi coast by speeding up cutting of mangroves, reclamation of land from sea, selling out coastal land and occupying ancient fishermen villages.
According to a study, the coastal area of Karachi is heavily polluted particularly in the mangrove habitat. The coastline is highly polluted with a variety of hazardous substances of an industrial, municipal, and agricultural origin, but there is no proper monitoring or treatment facility to mitigate their harmful effects.
The levels of pollutants have already crossed the limits of natural oceanic concentrations. The study traced the pathway of trace metal iron from the source to the different mangrove parts via seawater and sediment. The concentration in the sediment was as high as 34 436 ppm and as low as 0.01 ppm in seawater, while vegetative mangrove parts like pneumatophores, bark, twigs, and leaves possessed generally less than 1000 ppm. The concentration factor of mangroves was very low, indicating minimum bioavailability of iron from the sediment.
The concentration of the metal decreases progressively through different sections of the mangrove habitat in the following sequence: from sediment to pneumatophores to bark to leaves to twigs to seawater. The coastal area of Karachi is occupied by dense mangrove vegetation, which is spread over several small islets isolated by small and large creeks that are flushed twice daily with moderate diurnal tides.
Only one species avicennia marina thrives in the area that is highly polluted from the entire city, mainly through the Lyari and Malir rivers. The former river collects industrial and municipal waste from the Sindh Industrial Trading Estate, which it then discharges into the sea through Karachi Harbour, affecting especially the mangroves of Sandspit and backwater.
