Pakistan heat wave subsides as death toll climbs to 860

Business Mirror via AP: The devastating heat wave that struck southern Pakistan last weekend is slowly subsiding but the toll was still climbing on Thursday to a total of 860 confirmed deaths, a senior health official said.

Pakistan’s deadliest heat wave on record comes just weeks after soaring temperatures caused nearly 2,200 deaths in neighboring India, raising fears that South Asia could be seeing some of the devastating effects of human-caused climate change.

The crisis centered in the southern port city of Karachi was worsened by poor local services, including a faulty power grid and shortages of potable water. And the heat wave struck as the city’s Muslim majority was observing the dawn-to-dusk fasting month of Ramadan.

Jam Mehtab Hussain, the provincial health minister in the southern Sindh province, of which Karachi is the capital, said that despite lower temperatures people were still being admitted to hospitals with heat-related ailments—though in smaller numbers than in previous days.

Ahmad Kamal, a spokesman for the National Disaster Management Authority, said authorities were providing free medical treatment to people in Karachi. He said the situation was improving due to lower temperatures....

Pakistan improving sanitation way faster than India

The Economic Times: Pakistan has left India far behind in terms of improving water and sanitation access for their citizens, reveals a new performance index released on Friday.

While Pakistan was ranked five in the new index developed by The Water Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Gillings School of Global Public Health in the US, India occupied an unenviable 92nd position.

High-performing countries for 2015 are those that achieved significant improvement in recent years compared to their peers. Low-performing countries are those that showed stagnation or decline in recent years compared to their peers.

India's ranking as a bottom-performer predates the recent launch of the " Clean India Mission" by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Sub-Saharan Africa countries including Mali, South Africa, and Ethiopia are also among the top performers world-wide in spite of modest resources, according to the WaSH Performance Index that evaluates country performance in improving access to water and sanitation and in eroding inequalities in access.

Other high performers include China, El Salvador, Niger, Egypt, and Maldives. Conversely, Russia, the Philippines and Brazil were bottom performers .

The index compares countries of all sizes and income levels. Using this method, the report revealed that a country's gross domestic product did not determine performance in improving water and sanitation for its citizens...

Providing clean water in Pakistan. Image by the UK Department for International Development, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license 

A disaster-resilient Sindh

Islamic Relief: New Islamic Relief research and a roadmap to resilience have added momentum to disaster risk reduction in Sindh, Pakistan.

The research into disaster vulnerabilities and capacity in Sindh – a province that is particularly prone to both flooding and drought – was launched at Islamic Relief Pakistan consultation held last month. The workshop included the director general of the Provincial Disaster Management Authority, UN agencies, as well as national and international NGOs and members of civil society. It aimed to bring decision-makers together to minimise the risk disasters pose to the people of Sindh.

Islamic Relief’s interim head of programme Summaya Sajjad explained how the study assessed community and institutional engagement and what they do when disasters strike. “We also want to identify the challenges and issues faced by the government and communities at the time of disaster,” she said. “As well as the steps communities take to overcome the losses sustained in three districts: Sanghar, Dadu and Thatta.”

Sharing the key findings of the study, our area programme manager, Sajjad Khan, pointed out the far-reaching impact of disasters. Livelihoods, health and living conditions are badly affected, and people may be traumatised by the experience, he said. In the drought-hit areas covered by the study, essential groundwater has been depleted by 30-40 feet. With no easy way to access water sources, malnutrition and disease outbreaks were rife among poor communities.

Whilst most community efforts focused on disaster-response, the research revealed, these were not informed by knowledge of community-level initiatives or emerging practices to prepare for disasters and reduce their impact when they occur....

Clearing rubble from a flood-damaged home in Sindh, shot by Russell Watkins, UK Department for International Development, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

En route to climate change adaptation

Ayesha Qaisrani in Pakistan Today: With no adherence to geographical boundaries, climate change continues to hover over our heads like a dense, dark cloud of uncertainty. Even with all the sophisticated projections of climate change, only one thing about it remains certain: that it is happening and we better act now.

Realising the gravity of the situation, Climate Action Network South Asia (CANSA) in collaboration with Janathakshan and Asia Pacific Adaptation Network (APAN), organised a sub-regional workshop for the South Asian nations in Colombo, Sri Lanka, to discuss the latest adaptation initiatives taken up and exchange best practices and information. The workshop took place on the 23rd and 24th of February 2015 and was attended by representatives of Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, the Maldives, Bhutan and Nepal including representation from the respective governments, the parliaments and the civil society.

...It was encouraging to get insights about the adaptation initiatives being taken up by the nations of South Asia. Even more encouraging was the general recognition of the need of cooperation and collaboration among the nations for an effective response to climate change. Emphasising on the need of regional cooperation, Mr Malik Muhammad Uzair Khan, Member Parliament, Pakistan, commented, “Pakistan like India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh is reeling under the worst impacts of climate change. Clearly, climate change knows no borders and now more than ever it is critical that our leaders come together to share best practices for climate change adaptation and set the region on the path of sustainable development.”

Underlining that capacity building is the keystone to effective adaptation to climate change. The representatives advocated a balanced investment in physical infrastructure and skills of the population. They stressed upon focusing on education and awareness, health, agriculture sector, water management and disaster preparedness to increase the resilience of people and reduce their vulnerability. Besides individual and community level, focus should also be directed at institutional capacity building as, quite often, it is the institutions that are inefficient in setting their priorities for strategic response to climate change....

NASA image of 2010 flooding in Pakistan

Pakistan suffering heavy losses from Indian mills' emissions

Faiza Ilyas in Dawn (Pakistan): Apart from damaging public health and crop cultivation, heavy fog mainly created by hazardous emissions from the coal-based Indian steel mills are causing a loss of $2 billion annually to Pakistan’s aviation industry.

The Sindh coast doesn’t face the threat of complete drowning from the intruding sea by 2060 as was recently reported in the press, but there are all indications that Pakistan would be seriously impacted by changes in weather conditions, which would become more intense in the coming years. Building dams could help Pakistan prevent flooding.

These were some important points highlighted by deputy director general of the meteorological department Dr Ghulam Rasool at a press briefing held on Saturday. It was arranged by Green Media Initiative in collaboration with the Karachi Press Club.

...“Pakistan ranks 10th among countries that would suffer the most from climate change. Every aspect of the phenomenon would impact us. Our coasts are now more vulnerable to tropical cyclones as their intensity would increase in the Arabian Sea and reduce in the Bay of Bengal,” he said, adding that sea level rise would contribute to sea intrusion.

According to Dr Rasool, of the total 8,123 glaciers in Pakistan, only 8,000 are advancing while the rest are reducing. The Siachen Glacier is the fastest melting glacier in the world. The deployment of armed forces of both Pakistan and India in that region is also contributing to decline in the ice mass....

Karachi traffic, shot by 元 from Tokyo, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Atribution 2.0 Generic license

Expensive water plants won’t quench thirst in Pakistan’s Thar desert

Zofeen T. Ebrahim in Eco-Business: In early January former president and co-chairperson of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Asif Ali Zardari, inaugurated what is touted to be one of Asia’s largest reverse osmosis water purification plants in Mithi city in Tharparkar district, Sindh province.

This is just one of 750 plants in the pipeline, which the Sindh government – run by the PPP – claims will bring drinking water to the drought prone region. But experts say the expensive technology is inappropriate for dispersed local communities and building canals and rain ponds would provide a more reliable stream of water in the long run.

Tharparkar lies in the south-east of Sindh province. With a population of about 1.2 million, it is one of the poorest of Pakistan’s 120 districts, with the lowest Human Development Index. People live in harsh conditions where even the smallest weather aberration can have huge repercussions. Last year, the 30 per cent less than average rainfall led to over 600 deaths, including infants, mostly due to malnutrition. The region, bordering the Indian states of Rajasthan and Gujarat has been facing drought for the third consecutive year.

...All this provides good political sound bites but these reverse osmosis (RO) plants are not really the answer to the region’s water proble
ms say experts. First, the plants do not have the capacity to supply sufficient water to the local population. At a newly government-installed RO plant in the village of Fangrio, also in Tharparkar, three dozen or so people including men women and children were seen bickering and fighting over the limited waster produced by the plant.

The plant does not provide nearly enough water for the village of 500 households. ...The plants are also costly and difficult to maintain. ...[T]he community has not been given sufficient training to operate and maintain these plants, although company representative Burney claims the water plants have generated local employment opportunities.  The plants also consume large amounts of energy , something which is also in short supply....

In the Thar desert, shot by Valentina Pierantonio, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license

Pakistan's coastal villagers retreat as seas gobble land

Rina Saeed Khan in Reuters via the Thomson Reuters Foundation: For fisherman Sammar Dablo, it was as if "the seawater stole our homes" when land erosion forced his village to relocate further inland on Pakistan's south coast.

The people of the fan-shaped Indus Delta, where the Indus River meets the Arabian Sea, are among the poorest of the poor, mostly illiterate and living in wooden shacks on the mud flats. As seawater has washed into the delta, destroying thousands of hectares of fertile land and contaminating underground water channels, they survive by fishing in the saltwater creeks where dolphins are a common sight.

...The move was not easy, as households had to spend 15,000 rupees ($149) each to build new huts for themselves, he added. The story of Phirt village is not an isolated case. According to Dablo, many other communities in the delta are also shifting as their land disappears.

The latest scientific report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change pointed out that at the same time as sea levels are rising, most Asian deltas are sinking due to groundwater extraction, floodplain engineering and the trapping of sediment by dams.

The Indus Delta has seen an 80 percent reduction in sediment since the early 20th century, according to a 2009 paper published in Nature Geoscience. Around 20 dams and a large number of canals divert the waters of the Indus River, depriving the delta of fresh water.

Some inhabitants have moved to inland mud flats, where they do not have to buy the land they occupy. Others are decamping to Karachi’s coastal villages where relatives have settled. ... Climate change is clearly increasing vulnerabilities in the delta area. Sea-level rise is contributing to higher storm surges, erosion, flooding and salinity, according to WWF-Pakistan...

NASA view of the Indus River delta

Karachi's mangroves, defence against storms and tsunamis, threatened

Space Daily via AFP: Thick mangroves have long protected Karachi, southern Pakistan's sprawling metropolis, from battering by the Arabian Sea, but pollution, badly managed irrigation and years of illegal logging have left this natural barrier in a parlous state.

Experts fear that loss of the natural barrier formed by the mangroves could put the city of nearly 20 million people at greater risk from violent storms and even tsunamis. Close to Karachi, the mighty Indus river ends its long journey from the Himalayas in the sea.

The river delta is home to the shimmering green mangrove, a delicate ecosystem that thrives in the mingled salt and fresh water....But the mangrove is a shadow of its former self -- from 600,000 hectares in the early 20th century now barely 130,000 hectares remain, according to marine biologist Mohammad Moazzam Khan.

The rest has fallen victim to illegal loggers, pollution from nearby industry and changes to the river flow caused by irrigation upstream on the agricultural plains of Sindh and Punjab provinces. The fishermen, who make a livelihood from the fish and shellfish that shelter in the mangroves, have warned about their decline for years....

NASA image of the Indus River delta

India's Gujarat state braces for Cyclone Nilofar

BBC: Authorities in India have begun evacuating tens of thousands of people as a powerful cyclone heads for the western coast. Cyclone Nilofar, categorised as "severe" by weather forecasters, is expected to hit Gujarat state on Saturday morning.

India's Meteorological Department has predicted the storm will bring winds of up to 130km/h (80 mph). Rescue and relief teams have been deployed and the army is on stand-by.

A super-cyclone in 1999 killed more than 10,000 people in eastern Orissa state. Earlier this month, Cyclone Hudhud pounded India's eastern coast, killing more than 40 people, causing extensive damage and prompting the evacuation of some 350,000 people.

Cyclone Nilofar is also expected to pass around 250km (155 miles) from Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city, local weather officials said.

Pakistan's National Disaster Management Authority has told officials to prepare to evacuate villages along the coast and close beachside restaurants. Authorities in Gujarat's coastal Kutch district, where the cyclone is expected to make landfall, have begun evacuating more than 30,000 people from the area, senior local official MS Patel told the AFP news agency...

NASA image of Cyclone Nilofar in the Arabian Sea, October 29, 2014

Pakistan floods affect 2.3 million

IRIN: As the flood emergency deepens in Pakistan, now affecting nearly 2.3 million people, humanitarian teams have mobilized to work alongside local government authorities to assess needs in the worst-affected areas.

Late monsoon rains earlier this month hit the mountainous areas of Gilgit-Balitstan and Pakistani-administered Kashmir, unleashing a torrent of water flowing into Punjab’s agricultural heartlands. Swollen rivers breached flood defences, sweeping away thousands of villages as the “super-flood” surged south, wreaking havoc throughout Punjab, the country’s most populous province.

The government’s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) says 312 people have died, with 2,275,000 affected and nearly 1.7 million acres (687,965 hectares) of crops lost. Punjab Province declared a state of emergency as the flood spread through central areas, with Jhang District hit hardest.

At a distribution by the Pakistan Red Crescent Society (PRCS) in the government high school at Vanike Tarar, where 250 households received food rations, Sher Muhammad, 85, looked on with a sense of bewilderment: “I have not seen such a flood, not since around the time of partition [1947].”

Backed by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), PRCS has been one of the first organisations to respond, working across eight of the 10 districts affected in Punjab. Muhammad Saleem, PRCS Punjab secretary, said: “We are aiming to provide food to those worst-affected in the days ahead, initially for 13,000 families.”...

An aerial view of 2010 flooding in Pakistan, shot by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Time to ‘follow’ the floods in India

An opinion piece on the Climate & Development Knowledge Network: The scale of the devastation and damage in the recent floods in Jammu and Kashmir, the contested territory between India and Pakistan, has not been seen in this area for a hundred years. Flood damage, according to the chief minister, could go beyond ‘many thousands of crores’. Irreversible damage to key infrastructures such as roads, telecommunication, hospitals, and water supply systems and many small and medium enterprises in the Kashmir valley is likely to further escalate this cost.

Flood, as a natural hazard, has been a recurring phenomenon in many parts of India, and more so during the monsoon. States of Assam, Bihar, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, and Uttarakhand witnessed floods of various intensities during this year’s monsoon. Even semi-arid regions of Rajasthan witnessed flood-like situations because of unusual and heavy rainfalls in the region. At the same time, and perhaps ironically, these devastating flooding events took place amidst widespread speculations of a strong El-Nino for India this year and forecast of a deficit monsoon resulting in 1.75% decline in its GDP.

Such cases of extreme rainfall events have become frequent and intense in India. Of significant concern is the predicted and reported extreme fluctuations in the dry and wet spells of the South Asian summer monsoon. A statistically significant increase in the intensity of wet spells has already been reported.

As this extreme weather phenomena results in an increasing number of hydro-meteorological hazards, the consequent loss and damage involved is also increasing. The Uttarakhand flooding, triggered by unusually extreme rainfalls in the Himalayas, was the second deadliest hydro-meteorological disaster in 2013, after Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines. The resulting economic and insured losses were to the tune of USD1.9 billion and USD 85 million respectively....

A flood in India, location unknown, shot by Rakesh, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license 

Pakistan's agricultural economy facing climate change risks

The Daily Times (Pakistan):
Senior Environmental experts said on Wednesday that national agricultural economy was being affected by five major risks related to climate change.  Talking to APP senior researcher, Kashif Salik working with Sustainable Policy Development Institute (SDPI) said that being a predominantly agricultural economy, climate change is estimated to decrease crop yields in Pakistan not only as a result of flooding, but also as a result of changing temperatures, which in turn will affect livelihoods and food production.

He said that deterioration of climate is irreversibly harming Pakistan, as glacier melting in the Himalayas is projected to increase flooding and affect water resources within the next two to three decades. Deforestation is the second leading contributor of carbon emissions worldwide after the burning of fossil fuels, and after seas, forests are the second largest storehouse of the carbon, he added.

“Being a predominantly agricultural economy, climate change is estimated to decrease crop yields in Pakistan not only as a result of flooding, but also as a result of changing temperatures, which in turn will affect livelihoods and food production” he further said. “The glacial melt will affect fresh water flows with dramatic adverse effects on biodiversity and livelihood with possible long-term implications on regional food security” he informed.

Kashif Salik further said that scientific studies showed that average global temperature has risen by about 1 degree Centigrade during the past century. He said that this increase was mostly due to fossil fuel burning and deforestation. Global temperatures are projected to increase further between 1.4 degree Centigrade and 5.8 degree Centigrade by 2100 and to continue to rise long after. “Climate change is a global issue which is of concern for the entire international community”....

Rice terraces in Karakoram, shot by Ziegler175, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons 3.0 license

The most vulnerable populations to climate change: floods, droughts and extreme weather

Catherine Griffin in Science World Report: While climate change can benefit some locations, other areas are more at risk. Now, scientists have taken a look at which sections of the world's population are left most at risk to food shortages and extreme weather events.

Extreme weather events can leave populations with not enough food both in the short- and long-term. That's why scientists decided to take a look at which populations could be most affected by these events. More specifically, they tracked the effects on four countries, including Russia, East Africa, Pakistan and the Philippines, which all experienced extreme weather events that ranged from drought to flooding.

Climate change is expected to increase the intensity and frequency of heatwaves and floods. Although there's no scientific evidence to show that a specific weather event would not have happened without climate change, the risk of the event does indeed increase. In fact, the new findings show that the heat wave that occurred in Russia and the drought that occurred in East Africa were most likely caused by climate change.

"Weather has always affected flood security, particularly for many of the world's poorest people," said John Ingram, one of the lead authors of the new study, in a news release. "Perhaps we think of farmers or fishermen first, but extreme weather will affect many more people in other ways too. While direct measures such as emergency preparedness and the strengthening of response-related institutions is helpful, this study has identified the need for a wider cultural shift to ensure the poorest and most vulnerable are properly protected."...

US Army photo of 2010 flooding in Pakistan

Indian Kashmir city 'in ruins' after floods

Space Daily via AFP: The main city in Indian Kashmir has "drowned completely" under floodwaters, a senior official said Friday, with the deadly inundation now affecting about two million people in neighbouring Pakistan and threatening its all-important cotton industry.

The floods began in Kashmir after heavy monsoon rains and are now progressing downstream through Pakistan, inundating thousands of villages and large areas of important farmland in the country's breadbasket.

More than 450 people have been killed and Pakistan's Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said just shy of two million people have been affected by the floodwaters -- a figure that includes both those stranded at home and those who fled after the floods hit.

More than 140,000 people have been evacuated from towns and villages around Punjab, Pakistan's richest and most populous province.

Authorities have made plans to blast holes in strategic dykes to divert the turbid brown floodwaters away from Multan, a city of two million inhabitants and the nerve centre of Pakistan's cotton and textiles industry, a vital export earner...

A flood zone map of India, map created by PlaneMad, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Floodplain management solution to devastating flood losses

A press release from WWF-Pakistan: WWF-Pakistan raised serious concerns over the increased frequency of massive floods and urged the government to reduce the impacts of environmental hazards through better management of floodplains.

Encroachments on floodplains for agricultural purposes and housing settlements are regarded as the main reasons for the increasing devastation caused by heavy rains and floods. Speaking on the issue, Hammad Naqi Khan, Director General, WWF-Pakistan called for a collective action to mitigate environmental hazards with thorough planning which includes strict policymaking to avoid any sort of development which may threaten the balance of nature.

It is worth noting that WWF-Pakistan has shared recommendations with the government from time to time on effective measures to mitigate floods by strengthening the Disaster Risk Reduction strategy - DRR. Due to lack of awareness about the causes of heavy rains and flooding, agricultural land and property is heavily damaged, leading to a huge loss to the national economy.

Managing the rivers to minimize the impacts from annual floods is essential to ensure the long-term survival of communities living near rivers and mainstreams. Following the floods of 2010, the Ministry of Climate Change requested the Secretariat of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands to organize an expert team under the Convention’s Ramsar Advisory Mission (RAM) mechanism, to visit the wetlands along the Indus Ri
ver floodplains and share its recommendations.

The RAM visit aimed to a) devise a workable and cost effective strategy for wise-use of the floods, b) make recommendations for alteration in the prevailing flood control strategy to obtain maximum benefit from the floodwater and c) identify high priority wetlands/Ramsar Sites for restoration by using the floods as a tool for restoration. The mission highlighted the need to establish a broad-based coordinating authority for the sustainable management of the Indus River Basin and the need for an integrated approach to floodplain management....

A NASA image of 2010 floods in Pakistan

Jammu and Kashmir floods: Massive rescue operation under way, Srinagar submerged

Times of India: Massive rescue operations were under way on Monday to evacuate tens of thousands of people stranded in floods in Jammu & Kashmir as the situation remained grim with most parts of Srinagar city still under water and bad communication lines and high water levels posing a big challenge.

As authorities struggled to deal with the calamity, a landslide was reported from Pachori village in Udhampur district and mitigation forces have reached the area to rescue the few people trapped there.

A total of 25 boats have been launched in flooded areas of Srinagar city to ferry people out even as over 5,100 people have been rescued from the state which is reeling under heavy floods.

Flood fury has so far claimed the lives of about 150 people and damaged many buildings, including hospitals, and snapped road and communication links, cutting off many areas. The Army cantonment, civil secretariat and the high court in Srinagar have also been inundated.

"We are facing a big problem of communication as all links are down. We are not able to communicate with our teams sent on ground in this flood-ravaged areas. Also, as water level is high in many places our personnel are not able to reach the stranded," National Disaster Response Force chief O P Singh told reporters in Delhi....

Report rings alarm over climate change

Shehla Ambreen in the Nation (Pakistan): The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) fifth assessment report titled "IPCC AR5 - What it means for a stronger and more inclusive Pakistan" released on Monday held that in South Asia some low-carbon development options may be less costly in the long run in terms of climate change with integrated climate adaptation, mitigation and development approaches.

Besides, the report emphasised on international cooperation as vital to avert dangerous climate change and enabling South Asian governments to promote ambitious global action. Ali Tauqeer Sheikh, CEO, LEAD Pakistan, said that it was the most comprehensive assessment of climate change ever with input of 830 expert authors from 85 countries. He said: "The report reviews the scientific evidence on the trends and causes of climate change, the risks to human and natural systems, and options for adaptation and mitigation."

...Dr Adil Najam, Dean of Pardee School of Global Studies said that everyone should step forward and take action in fighting against climate change. He said: "There is no doubt in saying that climate change is posing a great threat to the water and food security, health, livelihood and infrastructure in South Asia."

"Climate becomes unpredictable if it is messed and management of adaptation for the future will be mostly related to water, because climate of the future is very wet," he added. The report warned that climate change would have widespread impacts on South Asian society and its interaction with the natural environment. It stated that climate change adaptations were mostly going to be about changes in life style, ways of energy production and going for advanced technologies....

A man points to the level that the water came up to on the side of his home when floods swept through his village in Pakistan's Sindh province in August 2010.Shot by DFID - UK Department for International Development, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Pakistan's juniper forest sacrificed for fuel, fruit orchards

Aamir Saeed in Thomson Reuters Foundation: One of the world’s largest and most ancient juniper forests in southwestern Pakistan, already stressed by water shortages, faces a further threat as its trees are cut down for fuel and to clear land for orchards.

Some of the trees in the juniper forest in the picturesque Ziarat valley of Balochistan province are believed to be as much as 7,000 years old. The forest covers an area of around 280,000 hectares (700,000 acres), of which around a third belongs to the state.

Protecting forests is crucial to curbing extreme weather and other problems associated with climate change, as trees absorb carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas. But persuading local residents not to fell them is difficult due to the profits to be made from selling timber, and because many people lack other sources of energy to heat their homes and cook food.

“We know the forest is an asset and we really want to protect, it but unfortunately we don’t have any alternative to firewood,” said Muhammad Hashim, a resident of Baba Kharwari, a village 8 km (5 miles) from the town of Ziarat.

Hashim, 55, is the only breadwinner for the 15 members of his family. He owns a 5-acre tract of land in the juniper forest, and to make ends meethe sells the trees to a local “mafia” that trades timber illegally....

A snow-dusted road in the Ziarat valley. Maybe those are junipers on that bluff. Shot by Akashahmed007, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license 

Pakistan flood victims await unfulfilled promises

IRIN: Four and a half years after a landslide and subsequent flooding in northern Pakistan’s Gilgit-Baltistan State killed 19 people and displaced around 25,000, a solution to the plight of local residents seems as far off as ever.

The area that used to house a handful of bustling communities is a 22km-long pool of water dubbed Attabad Lake. Looking out from its banks, the shells of dozens of homes rise up from the blue-green waters.

In the aftermath of this disaster in the Hunza Valley, there were immediate commitments by the Pakistani authorities that they would drain the area and resettle the displaced families in new territory, but residents say nothing has happened, that compensation has been inadequate, and that the government is prioritizing the rebuilding of a nearby highway to China. Many of those who protested have been thrown in jail, with some awaiting trial in special anti-terrorism courts on charges of arson and sedition.

The warning signs of the landslide had been noticeable for several months before the day of the crash, said Sahib Jan, a programme officer with Focus Humanitarian Assistance (FOCUS), an international group of agencies affiliated with the Aga Khan Development Network. Three months before the slide, they realized a crisis was coming. “We literally dragged people out of their homes, telling them their lives were in danger,” recalled Jan.

In the end the slide was more devastating than anyone had feared. "We evacuated several other villages, up to 100km downstream, out of fear the earthen dam created by the landslide would burst,” Jan added....

The Hunza Valley, shot by Yasin Chaudhry, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license

Pakistan looks for resources to implement flood protection plan

Maha Mussadaq in the Express Tribune: Monsoon intensity in the upcoming months will be on the mild side. Areas expecting rain will not experience losses comparable to previous years, however, precautionary arrangements are being made due to unusual climate patterns worldwide.

Addressing a group of journalists at the Prime Minister’s Secretariat, National Disaster Management Authority Chairman Major General Muhammad Saeed Aleem shared national efforts for monsoon preparedness discussed with provincial governments during the recently held two-day national conference on June 30 and July 1.

According to the chairman, the meeting brought forward key issues relating to previous disasters, preparedness for the year and the future were discussed in detail. While sharing the recent Pakistan Metrological Department (PMD) seasonal report, he said the emerging climatic features linked to El Nino development have fairly large potential to suppress the Monsoon this year.

....Comparing the situation to previous years, Aleem said that last year water levels had increased in all rivers across Pakistan however the loss calculated was not as severe as 2010. He said that the region under conflict is usually not a concern during monsoon, however, plans to facilitate internally displaced persons have been discussed.

He said that for further protection, NDMA has developed a ten-year plan but for implementation of the fourth national flood protection plan, resources would be needed for successful implementation.

The National Monsoon Contingency Plan would be finalized and shared with all the stakeholders in first week of July. Moreover, request has been sent to the Pakistan Commission for Indus Water to share information with the provinces according to the treaty....