Pakistan’s first national wildlife policy to be formulated: Mushahidullah Khan

ISLAMABAD: Climate Change Federal Minister, Senator Mushahidullah Khan on Thursday instructed the Ministry of Climate Change (MoCC) Forest and Wildlife Department to formulate the first national wildlife policy of Pakistan.

In the latest forest policy of Pakistan, there are some provisions about wildlife management but it mainly focusses on trees. To kick-start the all-inclusive consultative process, the minister called a meeting of all the provinces and stakeholders on December 15, 2017.

After the successful approval of Pakistan’s first national forest policy, for which the process started in 2015 on the direction of then prime minister of Pakistan, a comprehensive forest policy was finalized in consultation with the provinces and the Council of Common Interest (CCI) in a meeting held in September 2017.

Although forest policy is a provincial subject, the national forest policy was formulated to meet the contemporary challenges of fast-changing developments that transcend provincial and national boundaries.

The vacuum between science, policy and practice of wildlife management was badly felt by the Climate Change Federal Minister, Senator Mushahidullah Khan, who issued directions for the preparations of the country’s first comprehensive wildlife policy.

“A healthy wildlife plays an important role in maintaining the ecosystem. Pakistan has a diverse wildlife that plays an important role in the sustenance of the environment” said the minister.

He said that wildlife in Pakistan faces various dangers in the form of climate change effects, illegal hunting and import, unhealthy nutrition and unsustainable commercial use.

It is very important to take initiatives to protect the wildlife of Pakistan. It is the need of the hour to formulate a comprehensive national wildlife policy to ensure a healthy and protected wildlife in the country.

This is a somewhat timely intervention as no province or federal government has a wildlife policy and hardly any provincial legislation on wildlife has been done in the history of Pakistan.

It is expected that the national wildlife policy will work as a stimulus to revise all wildlife legislation of all provinces within the present tenure of the government.