Pakistan’s Indus Delta emerges on UN radar

Published on: April 6, 2023 1:20 AM

The shrinking delta of the Mighty River Indus of Pakistan has emerged on the United Nations’ radar after it accepted to create a global convention on all deltas of the world to ensure its protection against rising climate change impacts casting serious impact on its nature and habitat. The development occurred after a strong international civil society nexus of experts, academicians, policy makers and stakeholders unanimously raised their voice for an international UN Convention for the Conservation River Delta (UN-CCRD) on the sequel of its UN Human Rights Declaration, UN Geneva Pact and many others to ensure that all the major deltas of the world were dying due to adverse impacts of climate change and environmental degradation namely sea intrusion, sea level rise, droughts, depleting water flows, shrinking creeks and others. The African Centre for Climate Actions and Rural Development Initiative (ACCARD) in collaboration with the Nigeria’s Bayelsa State Government, the Institute for Environmental Diplomacy and Security at the University of Vermont, the Consortium for Capacity Building at the University of Colorado, Transboundary Water In-Cooperation Network (TWIN), Water Environment Forum-Pakistan, Center for the Advancement of Public Action (CAPA) Bennington College; Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Vietnam; and Center for Environment and Sustainable Livelihood Projects (CESLP), among others hosted a side event at the UN Water conference titled “Integrative Highland to Ocean (H2O) Action for Disappearing Deltas: Towards a UN Convention on Conserving River Deltas. Nisar Memon, former federal minister for information & broadcasting and Chairman of the World Environment Forum, a civil society organization working to protect water resources and environment, participated virtually to represent Pakistan in the sideline event whereas Freeman Elohor Oluowo of ACCARD and Prof Dr Asim Zia, Director, Institute for Environmental Diplomacy, Vermont physically participated in the session. The global convention would help in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by 2030 namely SDG-6 demanding “Clean Water”, SDG-13 “Climate Action”, and SDG-14 “Conserving and sustainably using the oceans, seas and marine resources”. The announcement about the Indus Delta emerging on the UN radar came after the successful campaign of the above-mentioned coalition of non-governmental and civil society organizations who started the drive for a global convention of the United Nations to protect deltas. The speakers and experts discussed deltas starting from Nigerian Niger Delta, Indus Delta of Pakistan, Mekong River, Colorado, Nile and St. Lawrence transboundary river basins.