The various independent reports published recently have mentioned that the area of Tharparkar had been continuously declared as a “drought calamity hit area” in 1968, 1978, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1995, 1996, 1999, 2001, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2012, 2013 and as recently as 2014. Tharparkar is the only fertile desert in the world and is the world’s 18th largest subtropical desert. It has a population of 1.3 million people making it one of the most populous arid regions in the world. The livelihood of the people of Thar almost totally depends on small-scale farming and livestock, and the entire livestock depends on grazing in the natural system of the rangelands. However, these grazing areas are nowadays under great stress due to increased grazing pressure, increased cultivation, tree cutting for fuel and wood, etc.
However, all this is happening due to limited organised effort on the part of the government and local communities to sustain and manage the livestock and rangelands under a sustainable balance. These unsustainable resource-draining practices are the result of insufficient awareness that the ecological implications and changing climate are important factors causing the loss of rangelands and desertification, which further worsen the situation, ushering in drought-like conditions.
According to media reports, the ongoing drought in Tharparkar has caused the deaths of more than 300 children and thousands of livestock. Low nutrition and polluted water have badly affected the health of the people living in Thar, particularly women and children, and the situation has turned into the worst disaster Tharis have ever seen in their history. Traditional knowledge and local experts, with the support of scientists, have declared the situation as being “irreparable”. People are not able to sustain their livelihoods, which have further increased dependency on relief goods. The government has started the distribution of wheat and has also initiated some construction schemes to improve healthcare and drinking water facilities, mostly in the main towns.
Although these efforts are appreciable, unfortunately such schemes will not sustain livelihoods nor directly support food security. Tharparkar is a district of 1.3 million people and 80 percent of the population depends on small-scale farming and livestock for their livelihood and nutritional needs. For the people of Tharparkar, small-scale farming and livestock are their livelihood, assets and sources of nutrition and income generation as well. Therefore, Tharparkar is in need of a programme and projects adapting and scaling small-scale family farming to secure the lives and livelihoods of the indigenous communities of Tharparkar. These farmers of marginalised Thar are the caretakers of some of the most degraded lands, shouldering the burden of conserving global crop biodiversity and managing some of the world’s most fragile soils. Thus they are critical allies in the fight against climate change too.
After the 18th constitutional amendment, food and other related subjects were further devolved as provincial subjects but still Pakistan has few national setups such as the ministry of national food security and research, the ministry of climate change and the national disaster management authority. So, now these institutions need to focus on the Tharparkar situation by observing 2014 as the International Year of Family Farming, as announced by the United Nations on November 22, 2013. Otherwise I am afraid that in the next few years, we will be one of the leading countries to push our own people into the ranks of the starved, contributing a big number to the nearly one billion hungry worldwide.
The author is the executive director of the Society for Environmental Actions, Reconstruction and Humanitarian Response