Climate change adaptations for sustainable agriculture in Pakistan
[Music]
[Applause]
okay let me start by thanking
the hall polish for women university and
local tech chapter for giving me this
opportunity
uh to share my thoughts um look
pakistan as a country is blessed with
diverse ecosystems and is quite rich in
flora and fauna
but this is the country which is also
ranked as
one of the top five most affected
country
when you look at climate change for us
as a country climate change is water
change
uh around half of the water in our water
channels comes from snow and glacier
melt and these
are the glaciers which are melting at a
very high rate secondly
if you look at the extreme weather
events
and you look at the history the last
like five
seven years you can easily see
that the frequency and intensity of
these events has increased significantly
we also have a long coast
uh the areas like titan badeen
we can see that sea water has started
intruding
if you look at the groundwater situation
in those areas you’ll see high levels
of salts which means that the
groundwater is also impacted by the
saline
brackish sea water
the we are also kind of a children of
monsoon
our agriculture system depends on the
monsoon rains
many areas we have you know started
observing
that the monsoon pattern is also
changing
this has also resulted in some areas uh
you know this has resulted in urban
flooding
maybe our system is not in a position to
cope you know with this high intensity
of rain in a short span of time so maybe
these are the few
factors which make us as one of the most
vulnerable country if you look at
climate change
so the world has realized that pakistan
is one of the most vulnerable countries
so
you can see that there’s a lot of
support
which is available uh if you look at
the the policy and regulatory framework
within the
you know within the country uh we see
that now there is a separate ministry
it’s called ministry of climate change
we recently promulgated the national
climate change policy
we also uh through a very participating
process we developed a framework for
action
where the idea was to ensure
that the key features of national
climate change policy
are implemented uh there are actions
there are short-term actions there are
medium-term actions and they are
long-term actions and all though because
a lot of these subjects they are
provincial subjects so
the provinces uh commit to take actions
both you know uh in the short term and
in the long term as part of uh that
framework
so we are fortunate that we have a kind
of a green party in power our prime
minister is a nature lover
uh he has taken and his government has
taken a lot of initiatives to address
environmental challenges in general
and the few challenges related to
climate change
in particular we wanted to
have more vegetation cover as a carbon
sink
so they launched this 10 billion tree
tsunami
program where the idea is that in the
next
couple of years there will be 10 billion
trees
uh you know they will be insured
uh the other initiative is uh clean and
green pakistan
where again there’s a lot of focus on
you know having sustainable green cities
urban forest is like one initiative
which comes
under that then there is a protected
area initiative
the key habitats they are
you know they’re taking actions to
protect
those habitats they are expanding the
national parks they have introduced
couple of new
protected areas the recent urban
flooding
uh they have the government has also
taken it seriously
so there have been uh some actions some
steps taken particularly in the the
largest coastal city
karachi where we saw a lot of
devastation because of
urban flooding so these are you know the
few initiatives
uh taken taken by the government but we
have also seen
that the private sector and other civil
society organizations
have also you know started working
collectively to address this challenge
there’s a
there’s a coalition of civil society
there
uh people are doing a lot of research
particularly focusing on climate change
adaptation
because i think it’s very clear to me
that for us
uh obviously mitigation is important but
adaptation is more important
we have to ensure that our farmers
our official community our people
are you know they are
uh sensitized and they are trained and
prepared
to meet the challenges related to
climate change
i think as i said earlier that for us
adaptation
is the key most of the agriculture in
pakistan is irrigated agriculture
which means that maybe in the initial
years
there will be more water but then there
will be viscosity of water
so we have to revisit our agriculture
policy
we have to revisit our cropping patterns
pakistan
most of the agriculture is irrigated
agriculture which means
that our farmers are producers they
depend on irrigation water to grow their
crops
and this is also linked to the food
security it’s very important that the
farmers
are trained and educate or educated
to use water more efficiently wwf
started a sustainable agriculture
program
almost 10 years ago with an objective to
build the capacity of farmers
to improve the water productivity to
ensure
that the uh the use of agriculture
chemicals
is is reduced i think it’s also very
important
that the crops that they use they are
not high data crop
so that’s the reason that as part of our
policy and network ac
we are you know doing a lot a lot of
lobbying to the government
to revisit our cropping uh cropping
pattern
and maybe there should be less reliance
on high delta
crops another area which needs attention
and a lot of work is being done
is rain water harvesting particularly in
our mountainous regions
where we get a lot of rainfalls there
are initiatives
where residents are encouraged to
harvest the rain water and then use it
when it’s
during the the dry period when there is
uh you know less water
available our dams are silting up
because of poor watershed management
areas and the catchment area the result
is
that a lot of silt comes in our dam it’s
very
it’s critically important that we
improve
uh the watershed management uh wwf again
you know recognizing the need has taken
and is working with the relevant
relevant government agencies
to improve the vegetation cover in the
catchment areas of some of the small
dams
okay as i shared earlier pakistan as a
country is not one of the leading
emitters
uh carbon emitter we are at the
receiving end
so it’s not the responsibility of the
government to take action
i think as an individual each one of us
has to take certain actions
i think the most important for us is
conservation
of energy and water as i said
for us climate change is water change so
we have to ensure
that you know as an individual uh in our
businesses in our workplace in our
houses we conserve both water and energy
the second thing is uh are our
buying uh priorities we have to ensure
as an individual
that we prefer appliances which are more
energy efficient another aspect which as
an individual we can do
is ensuring that our vehicles are
properly tuned
ensuring that if there’s an opportunity
we pool our resources we prefer
carpools instead of you know one person
one vehicle
climate change is very important for
food and water security and the role of
youth is critically important and that’s
the reason that wwf has launched few
campaigns
we have a school outreach program we
encourage
students to participate in the
activities some workshops some outdoor
activities
that we do as part of the campaign we
have
ydp the youth development program we
organize
digital workshops we engage
students in some of our campaigns these
campaigns
include awareness raising of target
communities
you know taking action on ground
collecting data
scientific research so we need your
support and
maybe that’s your responsibility to
support organizations
like wwf in their in their campaigns in
their work
because at the end of the day we need
collective action
and your role is very important