LAHORE – Federal Minister for Environment Samina Khalid Gurki visited the World Wide Fund for Nature Pakistan (WWF Pakistan) Head Office on Tuesday for a briefing on various conservation and environmental projects which have been organised by the WWF Pakistan Director General Ali Hasan Habib.
WWF Pakistan has entered its 41st year of conservation in Pakistan. This was Gurki’s first visit to the organisation after becoming the Federal Minister for Environment.
Inspector General (IG) Forests Syed Mehmood Nasir also accompanied her for this visit. Ali Hasan Habib introduced the efforts which WWF Pakistan has been making to work in various areas of conservation such as species, forests, wetlands and tackling issues of rapid urbanization without conducting proper environment impact assessments.
Pakistan Wetlands Programme, which is one of the largest undertakings in the country to conserve the country’s precious wetlands ecosystems, was also a part of the discussion. They also visited the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Lab at the office, where the scope of GIS in expanding conservation efforts was discussed.
The IG Forests said that there was a need of using GIS technology at a provincial level for better monitoring of Pakistan’s forests. The minister offered support to endeavours such as REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation), an initiative by the United Nations (UN). Ghurki concluded the meeting by sharing her appreciation and her interest in visiting field projects.
She stressed the need to linking environmental protection with poverty alleviation.
