Karachi/ Hyderabad:
The speakers in a seminar have highlighted the growing ecological and socio -economic challenges raised by the degradation of the Indo River.
The seminar, entitled “Río Indus: The Lifeline of Sindh under threat”, was organized by the National Federation of Hips Pakistan (NTUF) and the youth organization, alternate, at the Karachi Press Club on Friday. It coincided with the 28th International Day for Rivers’.
The leading intellectuals, the public representatives and the environmental activists, spoke in the seminar where they emphasized the importance of protecting the Indo River, which is vital for the survival of Sindh and its people.
The Secretary General of NTUF, Nasir Mansoor, has emphasized that rivers are living entities, and interfering with their natural flow is not only an ecological crime, but also a threat to regional stability
He also pointed out that the coastal areas of Pakistan, once they house the world’s largest mangrove forests, have been devastated, and the Delta del Indo, the fifth largest delta in the world, is now in danger. Zehra Khan, general secretary of the Federation of Women’s Workers in the home described the construction of the Six channel project as a “suicidal act” that would exacerbate the vulnerability of the region to climate change.
The academic Sajad Zaheer expressed solidarity with the resistance of Sindh against the channel project and other infrastructure projects that damage the ecology of the region. Zaheer remembered Sindh’s historical struggles against the Kalabagh dam.
Tabassum Khoso of the Imdad Foundation highlighted the growing environmental threat to coastal areas such as Thatta and Sajawal.
Fisherfolk forum
On International River Day, on March 14, a large number of women fishermen and men, along with political and human rights activists, participated in the Pakistan Fishing Forum contest against Cholistan and other channels on the Indo River. The demand for the demonstration was not a channel, prey or cuts in the Indo River.
The protest began in Ibrahim Hyderi and ended in Mal Jetty. The Central Secretary of Pakistan Fisherfolk Saeed Baloch, declared that the fight of the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum will continue against the construction of six channels in the Indo River.
Rallies addresses Kotri Barge
The Kotri Barge, the last engineering structure in the Indo River before meeting the Arabic Sea, remained flooded on Friday, although with the people who looked in arms to defend what they firmly believed that it was their right in the river.
The nationalist political parties, the divergent groups of citizens and farmers organized separate demonstrations of Hyderabad and Jamshoro, the flood being their point of convergence.
The protests and demonstrations were also taken throughout the province on Friday with a wider unusually broadly participation of people who marked the International Day for Rivers by asking for the end of the project to build six more channels in the river. People shower Rosa’s petals in the river, paying tribute as well.
“For more than 150 years, the ruling elite of Punjab has been exploiting the water of Sindh when building channels and dams,” allegedly defender Vasand Thari, president of Awami Tehreek, who led more than two kilometers to walk towards the bomber on Friday.
The president of Jeay Sindh Mahaz, Riaz Ali Chandio, who led the concentration of his party in the flood, said that the people of Sindh will not allow feudal lords to feel in the provincial government to steal the river. The president of the Sindh Hari Committee, Samar Hyder Jatoi, argued that the speech of President Zardari in which he rejected the channels also supported the statement of the protest of Sindh that they foresee the desertification in the province if the channels are fed with the river water.
