By Muhammad Luqman
Pakistan’s government is all set to approve country’s first ever National Wildlife Policy to help protect the biodiversity that has always been in danger due to ever-changing climate and illegal trade and poaching.
“The policy draft will be submitted to cabinet very soon for approval,” Advisor to Prime Minister on climate change, Malik Amin Aslam told the committee of senate, the upper house of the parliament in the capital Islamabad on Monday.
The meeting was chaired by Chairperson of the Committee Senator Sherry Rahman and attended by other members including leader of the House in the Senate Shibli Faraz, Senator Faisal Javed, Senator Sitara Ayaz, Senator Muhammad Usman Khan Kakar, Senator Dr. Jahanzeb Janaldini, Senator Muhammad Akram and Senator Nuzhat Sadia.
Amin Aslam said ,“In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, we successfully carried Billion Tree Tsunami project,” adding that it will be replicated on national level.
Chairperson Sherry Rahman said that Pakistan is the victim of Climate Change, adding that Climate Caucus would make efforts to formulate suggestions and recommendations on climate change issues to the ministry.
She said that Caucus also already issued recommendations to the provinces to coordinate with ministry of Climate Change.
The senators expressed concerns over the drought and water scarcity issues in Balochistan.
The meeting was also informed that the ministry would soon initiate a new project under Green Climate Fund.
The work on the formulation of the Wildlife Policy was initiated by Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz ) government last year , after seeking suggestions from all the four provinces.
With the consultations of the provincial governments, some provisions about wildlife management were included in the policy draft.
Wildlife in Pakistan faces various dangers in the form of climate change effects, illegal hunting and import, unhealthy nutrition and unsustainable commercial use.
