KARACHI: On the pretext celebrating International Coastal Cleanup Day on Saturday, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN – Pakistan) in collaboration with Ministry of Climate Change and others, held a photo session by collecting garbage with the help of volunteers from two kilometers of the Seaview. Mangroves for Future Programme (MFF), a subsidiary body of IUCN – Pakistan, for its 17 meeting of National Coordinating Body (NCB) selected Friday, September 15, for which some members of the Federal Ministry of Climate Change were invited, so that a photo session could be arrange on International Coastal Cleanup Day on Saturday. For the NCB meeting Secretary Climate Change Ministry Syed Abu Ahmad Akif, Inspector General Forest Syed Mahmood Nasir and other officials were invited from Islamabad. However, Country head of IUCN – Pakistan Mahmood Akhtar Cheema rejects this and said that there was no any motive to set NCB meeting just a day before International Coastal Cleanup Day. “It could be a coincidence; otherwise we had no any motive to set the NCB meeting just a day before International Coastal Cleanup Day,” Cheema told Daily Times over telephone. The beach cleaning activity was organised in collaboration with Sindh government, World Wildlife Fund for Nature-WWF-Pakistan, United Nations Environment Programme, Engro, some local NGOs and corporate giants, at Karachi’s Seaview beaches. Different organisation financed for the event, but they had not planned that after collecting the garbage, where it would be dumped. George Sadiq, Program Officer, Education, Communication and Outreach, IUCN quoting official of Mangroves for the Future (MFF) said that besides MFF, Engro, Nestle, UNDP, Sindh Forest Department and some NGOs financed for this event. Just a day before the event, some tractors started working on the selected site of the beach cleaning activity stretched over three kilometers and instead of taking garbage; tractors buried the garbage and leveled it with the sand. On Saturday, when volunteers came to collect garbage in order to clean beach, they found garbage buried into sand. The volunteers collected garbage in plastic bags that were kept at beach. The collected garbage was later carried by two trucks of Clifton Board Cantonment (CBC) and was taken to the Ibrahim Hyderi, city’s oldest fishermen settlement, where these truck thrown the garbage right in the sea again. In absence of the scientific garbage dumping site in Karachi, most of the domestic garbage is either taken to villages in outskirts where it is thrown under open sky or it is thrown inside the near Ibrahim Hyderi. When asked that as a part of the celebration of International Coastal Cleanup Day, the beach is cleaned, but again collected garbage was thrown back into the sea, then how it could bring any changes on sea life and isn’t the activity a photo session? Cheema said that he has no idea where the collected garbage was thrown. “For me it is shocking, if it is thrown back to sea than it was sad, but garbage collection and dumping was the duty of CBC, so I really have no idea,” IUCN country head told Daily Times. At this time, plastic has been found in 62 percent of all sea birds and in 100 percent of sea turtle species. According to official figures, 90 per cent of industrial effluent and sewage produced in the country’s biggest city of Karachi poured into the sea either directly or via Lyari, Malir River and 41 other major drains. Karachi produces up to 12,000 tonnes solid waste every day, almost all of it ends up in the sea. Instead of working on the sources of pollution or to ban on throwing the solid waste, raw sewage and industrial pollution in sea, IUCN for the sake of photo sessions organises such events. “Yes, you are right that solid waste and sewerage is thrown into sea, but we organise such event for awareness of masses,” Cheema claimed. But when contacted Secretary Climate Change Ministry Syed Abu Ahmad Akif to know that Federal Ministry of Climate Change, otherwise do not work on sources of the marine pollution, but why its official attend this photos session, he refused to issue any statement. However, during the beach cleaning activity, Senator Mushahidullah Khan admitted that every year millions of gallons of untreated wastewater that flows into oceans and tonnes of garbage winds up in these water bodies, over 60 percent of it being plastic material. But he has not explained media persons that why the garbage collected from the Seaview as a part of Coastal Cleanup Day, was thrown back to the sea. Published in Daily Times, September 17th 2017.