ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has installed the country’s first-ever artificial reefs off the coast of Balochistan province with an aim to generate at least $1 million annually through sustainable fishing and tourism besides ensuring marine biodiversity in the area, a top government official said on Tuesday.
The government this week deployed as many as 330 modular blocks of artificial reefs, with each block weighing 1.5 tons, in an area of four square nautical miles west of Jiwani town at Gwatar bay — a potential site for trans-boundary marine protected area between Pakistan and Iran — with a total cost of about $0.3 million.
An artificial reef is primarily an underwater manmade structure to promote marine life in areas with a featureless bottom to control erosion, block the use of trawling nets, and help visitors enjoy marine biodiversity. The deployment of decommissioned vessels and other available wrecks to serve as artificial reefs is a common practice in many coastal countries including the United States, Australia, Malta and New Zealand.
“These reefs will help local fishermen get access to a diverse fish stock near the coast and boost their income manifold, besides saving their time and fuel for the catch,” Ahmad Nadeem, director fisheries department in the government of Balochistan, told Arab News.
He said the project would create new job opportunities for the 40,000-strong local fishing community, attract investment and help develop tourism.
“The reefs will become a special habitat, breeding ground and shelter for marine life, including fish, in another four to five months,” Nadeem said, adding they were planning to replicate the project in other areas along the coast of Balochistan.
Pakistan’s coastline extends 1,100 kilometers from India to Iran with an Exclusive Economic Zone of 240,000 square kilometers. The total maritime zone of the South Asian nation is over 30 percent of the land area and includes some “very productive areas,” with rich fisheries and mineral resources, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
The country’s exports of fish and fishery products are currently valued to be around $500 million per annum while experts believe that it could be well over $1 billion with sustainable fishing and new export markets.
The WWF-Pakistan, which was consulted during the planning, design and site selection of artificial reefs, views the initiative as the beginning to a new era of biodiversity conservation that will help increase the production of commercially important fish and shellfish in Pakistani waters.
“The reefs will help reduce poaching by unauthorized trawlers in the Gwatar Bay,” Muhammad Moazzam Khan, technical adviser at the WWF-Pakistan, said. “It has rich fauna on rocky shores and is a natural abode of Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins, bottlenose dolphins and finless porpoises.”
Pakistan installs first artificial reefs in hopes of lifting fishing, tourism
https://arab.news/2susb
Pakistan installs first artificial reefs in hopes of lifting fishing, tourism
- Aims to generate at least $1 million annually through sustainable fishing and tourism besides ensuring marine biodiversity
- Balochistan government deployed the reefs near Jiwani to boost the income of 40,000-strong local fishing community
Pakistan denies reports army ordered ‘depopulation’ in Tirah Valley ahead of anti-militant operation
Pakistan denies reports army ordered ‘depopulation’ in Tirah Valley ahead of anti-militant operation
- Tirah Valley residents started fleeing homes this month ahead of a planned military operation against militants
- Reports aimed at creating alarm among public, disinformation against security institutions, says information ministry
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s information ministry on Sunday denied reports the army has ordered depopulation in the northwestern Tirah Valley ahead of a planned anti-militant offensive, stating that any movement of residents from the area is voluntary.
The denial from the government comes as residents of Tirah Valley in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province bordering Afghanistan flee their homes ahead of a planned military operation by the army against militants, particularly the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) group.
Despite major military operations in the mid-2010s, Tirah Valley has remained a stronghold for insurgents, prompting authorities to plan what they describe as a targeted clearance.
“The government has taken notice of misleading claims in circulation regarding alleged ‘depopulation’ from Tirah Valley on the orders of the Army,” the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MoIB) said in a statement on Sunday.
“These assertions are baseless, malicious, and driven by ulterior motives aimed at creating alarm among the public, disinformation against security institutions and furthering vested political interest.”
The ministry said Pakistan’s federal government and the armed forces had not issued directives for any such depopulation of the territory. It clarified that law enforcement agencies are “routinely conducting targeted, intelligence-based operations strictly against terrorist elements” with care to avoid disruption to peaceful civilian life.
It said locals are increasingly concerned over presence of the “khawarij,” a term the military and government frequently use for the TTP, in Tirah Valley and desire peace and stability in the area.
The information ministry mentioned that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Relief, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Department issued a notification on Dec. 26 last year for the release of funds, reportedly Rs4 billion [$14.24 million], for the “anticipated temporary and voluntary movement of population from certain localities of Tirah.”
It also said that the notification mentioned that the deputy commissioner of Khyber District, where Tirah Valley is located, said the voluntary movement of people reflects the views of the local population articulated through a jirga at the district level.
“Hence any stated position of the Provincial Government or their officials being conveyed to media that the said migration has anything to do with the Armed Forces is false and fabricated,” the information ministry said.
“Given with malafide intent to gain political capital and unfortunately malign security institutions and therefore highly regrettable.”
The evacuation has exposed tensions between the provincial government, run by former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, and the military establishment over the use of force in the region.
“We have neither allowed the operation nor will we ever allow the operation,” KP Law Minister Aftab Alam Afridi said earlier this month, arguing that past military campaigns had failed to deliver lasting stability.
Pakistan military spokesperson Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shareef Chaudhry has previously defended security operations as necessary as militant attacks surge in the country.
In a recent briefing, Chaudhry said security forces carried out 75,175 intelligence-based operations nationwide last year, including more than 14,000 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, attributing the surge in violence to what he described as a “politically conducive environment” for militants.
