The current theme of Learning to Live on Planet Earth, a website on biodiversity and environmental education is The Mountains of Northern Pakistan. As most of you are aware, we annually update our website with information on rich and diverse biological resources of Pakistan. So far, we have focussed on various individual fauna and flora including some related ecosystems. This time round, we have gone a little further to discuss a complex and exciting theme of mountains, consisting of various ecosystems. Besides the bio-physical features, the theme also looks into the social and economic significance of the mountains in Northern Pakistan.

Why to discuss mountains at this point of time? As mentioned earlier, mountains with their diversity of resources contribute to a great extent towards human survival, particularly for those living in the plains. They are a major source of water in the form of glaciers for drinking, farming, electricity production and other essential purposes. Moreover, they encompass variety of fruits and medicinal plants together with diversity of animals found in its various habitats including forests. Despite such wonderful resources, mountainous systems globally face serious environmental disasters. This is due to the unplanned human development initiatives based on unwise and indiscriminate use of the natural resources of mountains. Deforestation, unsystematic hunting of animals, irresponsible use of medicinal plants, introduction of alien invasive species, unplanned and unsustainable tourism practices and ever rising population growth rates are some of the burning issues that have turned these giant mountains into fragile landscapes.

Mountains in Pakistan, especially in the Northern Areas (NAs) are threatened of immense deforestation, hunting of wildlife, population and tourism pressure and lack of policy and governance systems to regularise sustainable use of natural resources. However, the history of developmental initiatives in this area is not so old. Just few decades ago, the people of NAs were not linked with the rest of the world through roads until the development of the Karakoram Highway in eighties. Although construction of the highway paved the way to benefit from the development initiatives taking place in other parts of the country and increasing economic gains from tourism, yet the unplanned and unwise use of its natural resource for development severely damaged its ecosystems. In this regard, organisations such as IUCN – The World Conservation Union, Pakistan and World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Pakistan are promoting sustainable use of natural resources in the NAs. IUCNP provided technical assistance to the Government to develop the Northern Areas Strategy for Sustainable Development (NASSD) , which was approved in 2004.

At the global level, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly proclaimed 2002 as the International Year of Mountains. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the UN was made responsible for executing the activities of the year. Later on, 11 December of each year was termed as International Mountain Day by the UN. On the occasion of the first International Mountain Day in 2003, the Mountain Committee of the FAO developed some material for awareness raising purposes. Among these, a toolkit was also produced, consisting of fact sheets on various dimensions of mountainous life such as biodiversity, mining, poverty, tourism hunger and climate. The current website is an effort to disseminate information about the Mountains of the NAs of Pakistan. The links on this theme focus on various dimensions of mountains such as poverty, tourism, gender and biodiversity at global and local levels. We are very thankful to FAO for allowing us to use the information from its above-mentioned toolkit and also to all the other sources which are utilised for gathering local level information including the NASSD.

We are also thankful to our interns/consultants Mr. Qasim Naqvi, Mr. Bilal Mansor, Ms. Natasha Baig and Ms. Reem Nazim who have worked hard for developing the content for the current theme of the website. The information is customised for teachers in the form of lesson plans, which will assist them to take this material into the classrooms. An interesting section for kids has also been designed, consisting of stories, puzzles and riddles on mountains.

We look forward to your comments and suggestions for further improving our website.
Enjoy surfing!


Zohra Rehmat Ali
Coordinator,
Environmental Education Programme
Education, Communication and Knowledge Management Group
IUCN Pakistan