The International Year of Mountains was held in 2002 at a time when I was in the Himalaya Mountain region in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Now, again in Pakistan, I celebrate International Mountain Day in Islamabad.
The International Year of Mountains was launched by the United Nations (UN) in New York on December 11, 2001 to raise awareness of the importance of sustainable mountain development. As 2002 concluded, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed an annual International Mountain Day to draw attention to the important roles that mountainous regions play in water and food supply. Activities focus on book fairs; symposia; themed lectures for students; workshops and press events. Mountaineering and exploration societies often hold lectures and social events on or around December 11.
Each year International Mountain Day has a particular theme. Previous themes have focused on freshwater, peace, biodiversity or climate change. The theme for 2011 is: mountains and forests. Healthy mountain forests are crucial to the ecological health of the world. They protect watersheds that supply freshwater to more than half of the world’s people. They are also home to wildlife, provide food and fodder for mountain people, and are important sources of timber and non-wood products. Yet in many parts of the world mountain forests are under threat, mainly due to deforestation.
The International Day aims to raise awareness about the relevance of mountain forests and the role they play within a Green Economy as well as in climate change adaptation measures.
The Daily Times newspaper in Islamabad highlights the importance of Pakistan’s mountains. Pakistan has one of the most fragile mountain systems in the world. The Karakorum, Himalaya, and Hindu Kush mountain ranges meet at a junction in northern Pakistan. Animals living in these mountain ranges include the snow leopard, screw horned marhkor, Himalayan ibex, urial, blue sheep, Marco Polo sheep, brown bear, and Tibetan wolf. These mountains have natural forests of alpine, coniferous, and sub-tropical pine trees. The spread of indigenous mountain forests is mostly in Gilgit-Baltistan, Azad Kashmir, Kohistan, Chitral, Swat, Dir, Muree, Hazara, and Ziarat. The article states that Ziarat is the third largest juniper forest in the world, with some trees dating 4,000 years old.
Northern Areas, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Azad Kashmir account for nearly 52% of Pakistan’s forest reserves. From 1947 there has been an incremental rise in the rate of deforestation. Timber prices in Pakistan are currently double the world’s average, making its timber a valuable commodity. Pakistan is believed to be ranked second in the world for cutting down trees.
Floods have also caused large-scale land erosion and soil degradation in many areas. Forty-days of road blockages of the Karakorum Highway led to economic losses for people of the region. Tree roots have a vital role in stabilizing the soil, particularly on hill slopes, helping to control soil erosion.
Afforestation and plantation programs in Pakistan are supported by community organizations, mostly through a network of eleven Rural Support Programmes which have formed 266,815 local-level organizations with over 4.3 million local members. The Rural Support Programme Network (RSPN), registered in 2001 and funded by international donors, involve mainly rural communities in improved management and delivery of basic services through social mobilization. Organized local communities, through the RSP network, undertake diverse activities, such as tree planting.
On July 15, 2009, Pakistan set a Guinness World Record for tree planting - planting 541,176 trees in 24 hours. The young mangrove saplings were planted by 300 volunteers on without using any mechanical equipment in the vast wetlands of the Indus River Delta in Thatta District. The tree planting, which is part of Pakistan's pledge to plant 120 million trees for the United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Billion Tree Campaign, took place about 150 kilometres southeast of Karachi in a biodiversity sanctuary that was designated in 2002 by the government as the Wetland of International Importance. The Billion Tree Campaign was launched in 2006. The record-breaking event was organized by Pakistan's Ministry of the Environment.
Pakistan has been particularly active in increasing the national forest coverage and has set a target of one million hectares of new forests by 2015. To make this happen five mega-forestry projects have been launched.
(http://www.un.org/ and http://www.unep.org/billiontreecampaign)
MARTINA NICOLLS is an international
aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of
Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet
(2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
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