Zubair Qureshi
Experts and civil society representatives on Tuesday expressed their dismay over the government’s indifference towards the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14—Life Below Water dealing with the maritime affairs.
They urged the government to take immediate steps to tackle marine pollution, streamline its management in a more sustainable manner by amicably resolving the overlapping mandate of the federal and the provincial authorities.
The participants also showed their trepidations and apprehensions towards the draft of the National Maritime Policy (NMP) that is lost somewhere in the government shelves for over three years.
Voicing their concerns while participating in a webinar organized by the Development Communications Network (Devcom-Pakistan) and DTNTV on Tuesday, the participants suggested establishment of a joint policy advocacy, awareness-raising and outreach platform for the maritime stakeholders especially on the SDG-14 targets.
Speaking on the occasion, Admiral (R) Asaf Humayun said Pakistan was signatory to many international treaties and conventions on maritime affairs but we hardly had any significant implementation. Maritime affairs had also divided mandates between the federal and the provinces after the 18th amendment in the constitution.
On many occasions, he said, it turned to be quite confusing regarding the role of the federal and the provincial governments.
Being far away from the Centre despite having the federal ministry, often the maritime affairs have no fanfare and sometimes we see duplication of work. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has all types of globally accepted regulatory frameworks Pakistan simply adopts it for the sake of marine resource conservation.
Rear Admiral (R) Saleem Akhtar highlighted that Pakistan had three ports and a very long coastal belt and we could benefit from the blessings of the ocean but had no adequate policy or action plan to harness the benefits.
More than 3000 million gallons of untreated wastewater is drained to the ocean.
It has caused severe sea pollution damaging the fisheries. European Union has banned import of fish from Pakistan resulting one-sixth of the catch goes to the poultry feed and part of it consumed locally.
He said there was a need to take immediate steps to stop plastic pollution and flow of untreated liquid waste to the sea. We have defined parameters to check the oil pollution from the visiting ships and those we break in the shipyard. But SOPs are hardly implemented in letter and spirit.
