Daily Times

Notwithstanding the fact that China and Pakistan are deepening and diversifying numerous forms of collaborations to take their bilateral relationships to the next level — one crucial area remains untapped. China’s “network of wetlands” has been dubbed one of ultimate cures to climatic imbalances and environmental hazardousness. All of which have been taking a heavy toll on Pakistan in the form of rampant flash floods, ecosystem degradation, aquifer pollution, biodiversity damages, water depletion as well as flora and fauna decline.

In the absence of a proper system of wetlands, known as the earth’s kidneys — since it naturally detoxifies underground water by making it fit for human consumption and watering of crops — Pakistan suffers water scarcity and contamination. Wetlands are also known to act as coolants to moderate temperatures. Owing to their dearth and dysfunction, “Pakistan observes rises in average temperatures significantly above the global average with a potential rise of 1.3°C-4.9°C by the 2090s over the 1986-2005 baseline.” As notes a recent study conducted by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and World Bank (WB). The report also finds that Pakistan is facing losses of up to $3.8 billion annually, due to climate change. Heavy floods are other natural disasters impact the agriculture sector, with damages to crops, livestock, fisheries and poultry.

Since Pakistan is not home to an effective wetland system — it cannot effectively store tonnes of rainwater and this is then flushed out into the ocean. Thus, land that is already suffering water stress fails to get recharged and this leads to a gradual dip in the underground water table. Since wetlands are the best modus operandi to ecological conservations, Pakistan is fast losing its treasure trove of biodiversity, including species of birds, animal and others.

It is fortunate that Pakistan has China as an all-weather friend, which ranks first in Asia and fourth in the world in terms of wetland area, with a total of more than 800 million mu (53.3 million hectares). Such ecological conservations that gave a new lease of life to China’s ecosystem have not come about with a mere click of the fingers. The vision, political will and execution plan that China put into play with arduousness may become stepping stones for Pakistan.

In the absence of a proper system of wetlands, known as the earth’s kidneys — since it naturally detoxifies underground water by making it fit for human consumption and watering of crops — Pakistan suffers water scarcity and contamination

As every cloud has a silver-lining, Pakistan has a glimmer of hope in coming up with solutions to fix the climatic rot. Last year, China hosted an international conference on World Environment Day. On June 04, 2021, with the help of China, Pakistan is all set to host the World Environment Conference for the first time; and Prime Minister Imran Khan will give an address. It is expected that among other solutions to be showcased will be the water recharge initiative; which is directly linked to establishing a network of wetlands like China.

A tangible advancement in laying down wetland systems has already been made. On December 11, 2020, the Ministry of Climate Change (MoCC), Federal Flood Commission (FFC) under the Ministry of Water Resources, and WWF-Pakistan jointly launched a programme titled: ‘Recharge Pakistan: Building Pakistan’s Resilience to Climate Change through Ecosystem-Based Adaptation for Integrated Flood Risk Management’ with a 30-year vision.

It aims to increase water storage and recharging through wetlands, floodplains and hill-torrents management; build resilience of vulnerable communities through climate-adapted, community-based natural resource management, livelihoods and forge a paradigm shift in Pakistan’s climate change adaptation and flood risk management approaches. More than 10 million people, the equivalent to around five percent of Pakistan’s population, will directly benefit from this programme, while 20 million people across 50 vulnerable districts in the country will be indirect beneficiaries.

With Chinese experience, tech-savvy expertise and hands-on research, Pakistan can turn things around. The concerned authorities will have to comprehend the extent of the strenuous efforts that China made as well as the new rules and regulations it enacted. Over the past five years, during 13th 5 years plan (2016-2020), China’s wetland area increased by more than 200,000 hectares, and the protection rate has now risen above 50 percent.

In January 2021, a draft law on wetland protection was submitted to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s top legislature, for first review. The legislation on wetland protection will help with the establishment of a complete legal system to guarantee wetland protection.

Since Pakistan is struggling to promote tourism, Chinese-styled wetlands are new source of splendour as they have emerged as awesome tourist points. In addition, this opened up new job avenues for local communities which helps to uplift them out of poverty.

This is another area where Pakistan can fully follow in China’s footsteps. For while protecting wetland ecology, China has also developed tourism through the appropriate use of wetlands, creating job opportunities and bringing prosperity to local residents. Nearly 10,000 villagers living near the Longji terraced fields national wetland park in Longsheng county, South China’s Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, were lifted out of poverty thanks to revenues from the park and subsidies from the local government. Elsewhere, China’s wetland parks contributed 53.6 billion yuan ($8.21 billion) to regional economic growth and directly created 47,000 new jobs, according to the National Forestry and Grassland Administration (NFGA). In 2019, China’s national wetland parks received 385 million visitors.

It seems, therefore, that Pakistan has much to learn and look forward to.

The writer is a senior journalist working for China Today and China Economic Net. He is founder and President of Institute of International Relations and Media Research (IIRMR). He can be reached at @yaseerkhann