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 confers highest civilian award on Jordan’s King Abdullah II
- King Abdullah II, President Asif Ali Zardari review regional and global developments, with a focus on the Middle East
- The two leaders reject any displacement of Palestinians, emphasize need for a Two-State solution, Zardari’s office says
ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari on Sunday conferred Pakistan’s highest civilian award, ‘Nishan-e-Pakistan,’ on Jordan’s King Abdullah II during his state visit to the South Asian country, President Zardari’s office said.
The honor was bestowed on the visiting monarch at a special investiture ceremony attended by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, members of the federal cabinet, military chiefs and members of the diplomatic corps.
On the occasion, the Jordanian king also conferred on President Zardari the ‘Wisam Al-Nahdah Al-Mursa,’ or the Order of the Renaissance, according to the Pakistan president’s office.
President Zardari and King Abdullah earlier held a meeting, at which they reaffirmed longstanding, fraternal ties between Pakistan and Jordan, and discussed the full range of bilateral relations.
“They also reviewed regional and international developments of mutual concern, with particular focus on peace, stability and security in the Middle East,” the president’s office said in a statement.
“They noted the need to build on the strength of these relations and to encourage greater people-to-people contact between the two countries.”
Both sides underlined the importance of working together in multilateral forums and of promoting humanitarian and development cooperation, according to President Zardari’s office.
On Palestine, the president and the Jordanian king reiterated their shared principled position on post-war Gaza.
“They rejected any displacement of Palestinians and emphasized the need for a Two-State solution. They called for the establishment of an independent, sovereign, viable and contiguous State of Palestine on pre-June 1967 borders with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital,” the statement read.
“Both leaders expressed confidence in the future direction of Pakistan-Jordan relations and agreed to maintain close coordination on bilateral, regional and global issues.”
