Coral bleaching: NFEH for imposing emergency to tackle marine pollution

KARACHI: The National Forum for Environment and Health (NFEH) has demanded that a national-level emergency should be declared to tackle the problem of marine pollution as the recent sighting of coral bleaching near Charna Island shows that serious environmental issue is getting worse every passing day.

In a press statement issued on Friday, NFEH President Muhammad Naeem Qureshi said that the Federal, Sindh, and Balochistan governments should sit together and collectively tackle the menacing issue of marine pollution.

He said that any further delay in tackling this emergency could cause irreversible damage to the marine environment and ecosystem connected to Pakistan's coastline.

He said that issue of marine pollution had already caused much damage to the major portion of Karachi's coastline nearby dense human population. He said that constant discharge of industrial and municipal waste and sewage had already caused much harm to the entire Clifton's shoreline that was otherwise a popular destination for recreation by the public.

"The coral bleaching at the far-off location of Charna Island off Balochistan's coast indicates that the issue of marine pollution has widened that directly threatens our sea resources," he said.

Qureshi, who is also the convener of the FPCCI's Standing Committee on Environment, said that the provincial governments of Sindh and Balochistan alone could not effectively tackle this problem.

He said that there were several federally controlled agencies whose operations and activities spread across the Pakistani coastline so the involvement of the Federal Government to tackle this problem was very much necessary.

He said the Environment Department of Sindh, Balochistan governments, environmental protection agencies of the two provinces and Ministry of Climate Change of Federal Government should collectively sit and find a way out to resolve this problem.

He said that already unplanned developmental activities across the Pakistani shoreline had threatened much of marine ecosystem.

"Issue like marine pollution should not be politicized as a very objective, honest, and straightforward approach is required to handle this issue for our coming generations," said NFEH President.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020