Daily Times

Having three main ranges of high altitude mountains including Hindu Kush, Himalaya and Karakoram, the mountains landscape in Pakistan is quite diverse. Same is the attraction of natural habitats, cultural diversity and heritage significance.

The rising phenomenon of climate change, an effect of the global warming that we could not tackle in time, has severely impacting the mountain resources, livelihood of the communities, culture and heritage too.

With the brisk increase in the mountain population, the governments remain indifferent to providing them the basic necessities of life. The most important was clean fuel and energy, and environment friendly architecture and housing.

Most importantly, the governments could not control indiscriminate deforestation from the highlands by the timber mafia. Rather a connivance of the ruling politicians, bureaucracy and mafia has always been massive deforestation at the highlands. Overall emissions of the greenhouse gases and the unchecked deforestation have played havoc to the nature and natural resources especially in the high altitude mountains.

This was the rationale when Development Communications Network (Devcom-Pakistan) launched its awareness-raising on the mountain conservation and development in 2002, the International Year of Mountains. For 15 years years now, the journey of engaging different segments of society especially youth in variety of activities from eco-friendly trekking to hills clean-up, seminars to art workshops and live painting competitions, cultural mainstreaming to promoting the mountain products, have been the hallmark of Devcom-Pakistan interventions.

In the seven years of globally recognised Pakistan Mountain Festival, youngsters have participated in the live painting competition that Devcom-Pakistan organised to mark the International Mountain Day ever year.

As many as 30 prize winning paintings in the past seven years were put on display in an exhibition titled ‘Mountains Landscape and Culture’ at the Main Atrium of the Safa Gold Mall on Friday, February 16. Organised by the Development Communications Network (Devcom-Pakistan), Safa Gold Mall and Pakistan in the world, the exhibition was inaugurated by the Ambassador of the Republic of Poland Piotr Opalinski and the Ambassador of Tunisia Adel Elarbi. A senior diplomat from the embassy of the Republic of Azerbaijan Samir Guliyev was the guest of honour on the occasion.

All the paintings are in oil-on-canvas, one each by a young female artist, and reflect the grandeur, beauty, biodiversity and indigenous cultural heritage of the high altitude mountains of Pakistan. Moderately priced, all paintings are marvelous work of creative expression on a canvas size 24×18 inches. Most of the paintings are in the landscape form while some are in the portrait. The young artists have explored their creative flair to enrich the paintings with valued aesthetical addition to the already enchanting frames of natural beauty of mystical charms.

The flow of colours makes a rhythm of spontaneous movement in actually the static images of the mountains and environment around. The indigenous people and local culture and heritage is also well depicted in the paintings.

Speaking on the occasion, the Devcom-Pakistan executive director and the founder and director of the Pakistan Mountain Festival said, “Well-aware and sensitised youth about environmental sustainability is the last hope to protect the mother planet through conservation and development initiatives. The damage done by the older generation is irreparable but still there is hope to slowdown the process of degradation by reducing the Greenhouse Gas emissions, eliminating indiscriminate deforestation and by taking steps for inclusive and integrated afforestation”.

The Devcom-Pakistan Creative Director Riffat Ara Baig briefing about the exhibition said the Development Communications Network (Devcom-Pakistan) has engaged different segments of society in its policy advocacy and awareness-raising on environment, sustainable development, mountain conservation and development, climate change, gender and health for the last 15 years. Youth has been the backbone of every initiative the Devcom-Pakistan launched since its inception in 2002.

The writer is an Islamabad-based art and culture, policy advocacy, strategic communication and outreach expert. He can be reached at devcom.pakistan@gmail.com. He tweets @EmmayeSyed

Published in Daily Times, February 18^th 2018.