Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah and Federal Minister for Environment & Climate Change Sherry Rehman agreed to work on various eco-tourism projects.
During a meeting held on Saturday at the CM house, the two decided to work on depollution of Manchhar Lake, development of eco-tourism on Keenjhar Lake and Miani Forest, establishing fisheries cold chains and development of sustainable Fisheries Management Framework.
It was briefed that the federal government has established the ‘National Disaster Risk Management Fund (NDRMF)’ to finance the sub-projects that would contribute to enhancing Pakistan’s resilience to climatic and other natural hazards and to strengthen the government’s ability to respond to disasters triggered by natural hazards. The fund was also mandated to support climate related interventions for climate change adaptation and mitigation. It has already committed an amount of US$ 38.78 million nationally for implementing the relevant projects and complimenting the realization of National Disaster Management Plan (NDMP) and National Flood Protection Plan (NEPP-IV).
Sherry said that the fund was planning to initiate proposal processing for Phase-II by November 2022 with anticipated approval of financing for the same by June 2023.The chief minister said that the NDRMF had approved the project ‘Towards Resilient Marine Ecosystem and Sustainable Blue Economy’ for Rs 1.98 billion. The location of the year-long project, (2022-23 & 2023-2024) was the coastal areas of District Thatta, Sujawal, Badin & Karachi.The project consists of two main components: Resilient Marine Ecosystem and Utilization of salinized land.Resilient Marine Ecosystem through Sustainable Management of Fisheries Resource ecosystem includes different components as follows:
Establishment of fisheries protected areas through community engagement, establishment of community policing through Fisheries Stewardship Agreements (FSA) in identified areas, development of Sustainable Fisheries Management Framework (SFMF) for coastal fisheries (all jetties), establishment of fisheries cold chain and development of support facilities on two landing centres.
Installation of flake ice machine / chilling unit with cold storage on two landing centres, installation of RO plant for clean water supply along with solar system compatible with RO on two landing centers, expansion of existing floating pontoon on two jetties, establishment & management of field offices (porta cabin), establishment of check posts (porta cabin), installation of chillers / flake ice machines on boats, provision of fish handling equipment to small boats and traders, including iceboxes, fish crates and fish basket.
Replacing harmful fishing gears with sustainable gear, sensitization of unsustainable and illegal unreported & unregulated (IUU) fishing. Convert at least 50 fishing trawlers to sustainable fishing boats (gill-netters etc.), monitoring movement of fishing boats through installation of Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) on boats.
