Cabinet likely to approve environment policy on June 29

The ministry of environment has sent the National Environment Policy (NEP) for approval of the federal cabinet, which is meeting here on Wednesday. Reliable sources told Business Recorder here on Monday that the policy provides broad guidelines to the federal and provincial governments, federally administrated territories and the local governments for addressing environmental concerns and ensuring effective management of their environmental resources.
The sources said that the NEP aims to protect, conserve and restore Pakistan's environment in order to improve the quality of life of the citizens through sustainable development.
The objectives of the policy include (a) conservation, restoration and efficient management of environmental resources, (b) integration of environmental considerations in policy-making and planning processes (c) capacity building of government agencies and other stakeholders at all levels for better environmental management (d) meeting international obligations effectively in line with the national aspirations and (e) creation of neat and clean environment through mass awareness and community mobilisation.
The sources said that NEP consists of six sections, which include the preamble, goal and objectives, sectoral guidelines, cross-sectoral guidelines, policy instruments, and implementation and monitoring. It proposes 107 guidelines for addressing sectoral environmental issues, especially pollution of fresh water bodies and coastal waters, air and noise pollution, lack of proper liquid and solid waste management, deforestation, loss of bio-diversity, desertification, natural disasters and climate change, grouped under nine sub-headings ie water supply and management, air quality and noise, waste management, forestry, biodiversity and protected areas, climate change and ozone depletion, energy efficiency and renewables, agriculture and livestock and multilateral environmental agreements.
They said that a total of 35 policy guidelines have been suggested for corss-sectoral issues grouped under seven headings ie poverty and environment, population and environment, gender and environment, health and environment, trade and environment, environment and local governance and natural disaster management.
The NEP proposes six instruments for achieving its objectives by integration of environment into development planning, legislation and regulatory framework, capacity development, economic and market based instruments, public awareness and education and public-private-civil society partnership.
The sources added that the implementation mechanism in the policy stipulates that the ministry shall develop an "Action Plan" while all relevant ministries, departments and agencies would also devise plans and programmes to implement policy provisions relating to their respective sector/sub-sector.
The NEP also proposes a 19-member National Environment Policy Implementation Committee, comprising representatives of the public and corporate sector as well as civil society organisations. Similar bodies at the provincial, district and tehsil levels have also been suggested, the sources concluded.