Adequate Funds, Youth Engagement Necessary For Mountain Conservation

Speakers at a multidisciplinary day-long conference Friday urged the government and international development partners to allocate sufficient funds for mountain areas of Pakistan to ensure adaptation of climate change

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 13th Dec, 2019 ):Speakers at a multidisciplinary day-long conference Friday urged the government and international development partners to allocate sufficient funds for mountain areas of Pakistan to ensure adaptation of climate change.

Being far flung from the urban centres, the mountain communities were being neglected that had increased their vulnerability due to the impacts of climate change, they said according to a press release.

Devcom-Pakistan (Development Communications Network) organised the conference on "Youth Matters for Mountains" to mark the International Mountains Day (IMD) in connection with the 9th�edition of Pakistan Mountain Festival at the Comsats University Islamabad campus in collaboration with Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), WaterAid, Centre for Climate Research and Development (CCRD) and Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF).

The inaugural session, Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction, was chaired by the chairman of Federal Floods Commission (FFC) Ahmad Kamal. The other speakers of the session were Idrees Mahsud, Member Disaster Risk Reduction National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), Dr Anjum Rasheed, Assistant Professor, Centre for Climate Research & Development (CCRD), Naeem Ashraf Raja, Director (Biodiversity), Ministry of Climate Change, Dr Imran Saqib Khallid, Research Fellow, Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI).

The FFC chairman Ahmad Kamal said the National Flood Protection Plan-IV was being implemented with the active participation of sun-national authorities on innovative and integrated approach incorporating structural and non-structural measures for reducing floods, reducing susceptibility to flood damages and mitigating the flood impacts keeping in view constraints, gaps and lapses in the previous Flood Protection Plans, technical shortcomings and lessons learnt from past major flood events.

But, there was a need to stop the occurring of the floods in the highlands that were due to fast glacier-melting and rainstorms as an impact of changing climate. Engaging local youth in community based disaster risk reduction could play significant role in reducing the vulnerabilities of the local communities.

Nadeem Ahmed, WaterAid Head of Policy and Advocacy, Mahboob Elahi, Former Director General Ministry of Climate Change, Dr Ejaz Ahmed Khan, Associate Professor, Health Services Academy, and Dr Sofia Khalid, Assistant Professor, Department of Environmental Sciences, Fatima Jinnah Women University (FJWU), were the main speakers of the second session on the 'Right to Water and Sanitation'.

Nadeem Ahmad said, "Extreme efforts and huge funds required to ensure every citizen right to have water, sanitation and hygiene in Pakistan. This right is extremely neglected to make Pakistan 7th�on the global vulnerability index in the access to WASH needs as almost 42 per cent of the population remains without access to basic sanitation, and use polluted water."Shakeel Ramay said, "The main issues are food availability, its accessibility and affordability for everyone. In case of marginalised communities and low-ranks, food security is a far reach phenomena as about 40 percent of the people live under or around the poverty-line."