Need to develop coastal areas as tourism spots stressed

Pakistan has the capability to boost its fish industry through coastal financial investment and resource development, said Urban Planner at Sustainable Initiatives, Farhan Anwar, during launching ceremony of 3rd position paper on 'Linking coastal financial investment with resource development and conservation'. The event was organized by World Wide Fund-Pakistan (WWF-P) in collaboration with Friends of Indus Forum, here on Thursday at a local hotel.
He said: "Pakistan has a fish and seafood industry worth $1.2 billion. Export alone is worth nearly $213million per annum and more than 0.8 million people rely directly and allied industrial activities are the most important economic activities along the coast of Sindh and Balochistan supporting livelihood to about 1.0 million fishermen and their families living in rural villages under poor conditions." He said that agriculture, forestry and fishing played equal roles in socio-economic patterns of coastal communities. It was largely held that lesser availability of fresh water due to damming and diversion of Indus water upstream for agriculture and mechanism of fishing industry has caused fishing to become dominant economic pursuit and forestry and agriculture, particularly forest have decreased in importance, he opined.
"About 10 per cent of the overall marine fish export originates from Badin, Sindh and out of total fish production of 80,659 tons, some 14,152 tons or 17.5 per cent was produced in Badin," he added. Deploring that coastal areas could not be developed as tourism spots due to non-availability of infrastructure, he said that NGOs are actively involved in coastal economic developmental sector and have worked out model conservations projects with some tourism and financial benefit components with the co-operation of the local coastal inhabitants.
However, the NGOs cannot possibly influence the vast coastal and marine areas of the country without having full support of the state authorities, he clarified. Coastal Development Authority's former Technical Adviser, Shamsul Haq Memon, said that despite having fresh, brackish and marine water resource only carp culture was being practised in inland waters on a limited scale. He said that Pakistan has high potential to generate revenues through financial investments and utilisation of coastal resources for financial benefits.