ISLAMABAD: In connection with the 7th Pakistan Mountain Festival, the annual flagship event by the Development Communications Network (Devcom-Pakistan) to commemorate the International Mountain Day, more than 100 students from different universities cleaned the Margalla Hills trail 5 on Saturday.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Pakistan Environment Wing, World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Institute of Environmental Sciences and Engineering (IESE) of the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) and Islamabad Devcom Centennial Leo Club (IDCLC) supported the event.
The participants collected a huge mass of waste including plastic bottles, wrappers, tins, plastics, shopping bags and food-packing thrown by visitors on the trail 5.
Speaking on the occasion, Devcom-Pakistan Executive Director and Pakistan Mountain Festival Director Munir Ahmed termed the overwhelming participation of youth in the cleanup of Margalla Hills Trail 5 as a good sign and a maturity of youth towards nature conservation. He said that the sensitised and environmentally engaged youth would become a real source of inspiration for others to adopt green and clean practices in the society.
Munir Ahmed said, “The fragile mountain ecosystems are the lifeline of the living and breathing species including human beings, and they cannot be restored to their original state after they have been overly exploited, therefore, we need to be more conscious to conserve them.”
Munir Ahmed said that the Metropolitan Corporation of Islamabad (MCI) needs to have a more vigorous action to take notice of the fast degrading Margalla Hills National Park spread in three parts of the Islamabad capital territory (ICT). He said that MCI should encourage citizens’ engagement in the management and improvement of civic facilities, and in healthy and environment-friendly practices.
Munir Ahmed said that mountains covered around 22 percent of the earth’s land surface and played a critical role in moving the world towards sustainable economic growth. He said that mountains not only provided sustenance and well-being to 915 million people (13 percent of global population) living in them around the world but also indirectly benefitted billions more living downstream.
Munir Ahmed said Pakistan was the custodian of several highest altitude mountains, adding that, “It is our collective responsibility to take care of the sanctity of the mountains that contribute a major chunk to our livelihood.”
He also pointed out that indiscriminate deforestation by timber cartels and housing mafia, increasing consumerism and overuse of environment unfriendly vehicles and home appliances had increased the carbon footprint causing the climate change.
He said that the extreme weathers would affect the next generation in an even worse way, even though the mountain communities of Pakistan were already facing an unbearable situation for the past several years.
Dr Imran Hashmi appreciated the efforts of Devcom-Pakistan for continuing environment-friendly practices in such odd times. He said that such activities empowered the youth to take up their leading role in society and at their workplaces.
IDCLC president Haares Munir said that the youth belonging to the mountainous regions needed to feel their responsibility to raise their fearless voices against the exploitation of natural resources in the footsteps of their homes.
“Reach out to the mainstream media with evidence against the culprits, develop and share the research-based stories of the victims of the climate change from the grassroots. It would help to highlight the impact of climate change on the communities and would certainly lead to a change in the policies and the priorities of the respective government and multilateral agencies. Even the smallest action has its own impact and may lead to a bigger change,” he said.
