Pakistan declares its third marine protected space, however has a protracted method to go

KARACHI — On Sept. 2, the federal government of Balochistan province in Pakistan declared the nation’s third marine protected space, round Miani Hor Lagoon on the nation’s central coast. The biodiversity-rich lagoon hosts a lush mangrove forest, quite a few hen species and threatened marine mammals.

With the declaration of the Miani Hor Marine Protected Space (MPA), Pakistan takes one other step towards reaching Goal 3 of the Kunming-Montreal World Range Framework, to guard 30% of its land and sea by 2030, often known as the 30×30 initiative. It’s a really small step, nonetheless: With the addition of the not-quite 43-square-kilometer (16.5-square-mile) Miani Hor MPA, Pakistan’s whole protected marine space measures 542 km² (209 mi²), or simply 0.23% of the 240,000 km² (92,660 mi²) of marine and coastal space underneath the nation’s jurisdiction.

Pakistan trails its neighbors, Bangladesh at 8% and even India at 0.3%, though none of those international locations’ MPAs are thought of effectively protected. And it seems on monitor to overlook the 30×30 goal, identical to it missed the previous Aichi Goal 11, which aimed to guard 10% of land and sea by 2020. In step with the nation’s monitor file, enacting administration plans for its MPAs additionally lags. As an example, it took Pakistan eight years to give you the administration plan for its first MPA, declared in 2017 round Astola Island; the second, the Churna Island MPA declared in September 2024, nonetheless has no administration plan in sight.

However, conservationists welcomed the brand new MPA.

“The declaration of Miani Hor as Pakistan’s third, and first lagoon-type marine protected space, is a landmark step in securing one of many nation’s final intact lagoon-mangrove techniques,” Rab Nawaz, senior director of biodiversity applications at WWF-Pakistan, informed Mongabay by cellphone. “Its safety will assist regulate fishing stress, forestall damaging growth, and keep the tidal flows that hold the lagoon alive. In contrast to the offshore MPAs of Astola and Churna, Miani Hor represents a coastal, community-dependent ecosystem. Its success will rely upon inclusive governance and powerful enforcement. This designation strengthens Pakistan’s commitments underneath SDG 14 and the World 30×30 Biodiversity Framework.”

Miani Hor Lagoon

Positioned round 90 km (56 mi) northwest of the megacity of Karachi, Miani Hor is Pakistan’s largest lagoon, at 60 km lengthy by 5 km huge (37 by 3 mi). It kinds on the outlet of two essential rain-based rivers, the Porali and the Winder, in Lasbela district, Balochistan province.

“Miani Hor is a big biodiversity hotspot which not solely hosts quite a lot of species of mammals, but in addition birds,” Muhammad Moazzam Khan, a technical adviser at WWF-Pakistan, informed Mongabay. “No different web site in Pakistan has been dwelling to as massive quite a lot of migratory and resident hen species as Miani Hor.”

In 2001, the lagoon was declared a Ramsar Web site due to its avian variety, which incorporates larger flamingos (Phoenicopterus roseus), Dalmatian pelicans (Pelecanus crispus) and nice black-headed gulls (Ichthyaetus ichthyaetus). In the course of the winter, scientists estimate 20,000 birds of assorted species congregate on the lagoon, and greater than 55 hen species have been documented within the space, in keeping with Altaf Hussain Narejo, a zoologist with Pakistan’s Ministry of Local weather Change and Environmental Coordination.

The lagoon hosts a resident inhabitants of 60 to 80 endangered Indian Ocean humpback dolphins (Sousa plumbea). Indo-Pacific finless porpoises (Neophocaena phocaenoides), categorised as susceptible, have additionally been noticed within the space, however an absence of research means there’s no actual knowledge on their numbers. The Marine Mammal Protected Areas Process Pressure lists the lagoon as an “essential marine mammal space” due to these two species; it’s additionally dwelling to near-threatened Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus).

A significant asset for wildlife is the lagoon’s dense mangrove forest, comprised of three mangrove species: Avicennia marina, Rhizophora mucronata and Ceriops tagal. Elsewhere in Pakistan, the latter two species are declining, together with within the Indus Delta in Sindh province, which is the world’s seventh-largest mangrove forest.

Mangroves present essential habitat for aquatic and avian species. Their intricate root techniques make them resilient to storms and efficient at controlling coastal erosion and defending corals, seagrasses and different seabed organisms from the opposed results of particles washed into the ocean. They’re additionally glorious at sequestering carbon. In 2022, the Balochistan provincial authorities, which takes care of all three of Pakistan’s MPAs, declared Miani Hor’s mangroves a protected forest.

Threats and protections

Miani Hor’s marine mammals, birds and mangroves all face vital threats from uncontrolled looking and slicing. A rise in vessel site visitors and unsustainable fishing actions have additional exacerbated the threats.

The scope of protections for the waters and mangroves of the brand new Miani Hor MPA stays to be decided. For one factor, it’s not solely clear which a part of the lagoon the MPA will cowl as the scale declared by the Balochistan Forest and Wildlife Division, round 43 km², is way smaller than the lagoon and but a map from the division reveals the MPA overlaying the whole lagoon. The division is presently engaged on a administration plan for the brand new MPA, which should tackle the wants of the local people of fishers and others who rely upon the lagoon and mangroves for his or her livelihoods.

“Declaring the location an MPA is step one,” Afia Salam, an unbiased environmentalist primarily based in Karachi, informed Mongabay. “Now lies a protracted journey forward for doing a base research and scientific and social assessments to enact a administration plan, deciding what sort of protections must be conferred and what ease is given to the native folks.”

Figuring out the mangrove protections is essential, for the reason that current protected forest standing lacks enamel. Nonetheless, this can be significantly tough, in keeping with Muhammad Shafi, a marine scientist at Lasbela College of Agriculture, Water and Marine Sciences in Balochistan and the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology in Guangzhou, China.

“The area people depends on mangrove forests for the reason that space lacks fundamental facilities similar to [cooking] gasoline. They use this wooden as gas and livelihood,” Shafi informed Mongabay by cellphone. “Within the absence of such requirements, it might be tough to place restrictions and save these essential bushes. Thus, the protections conferred should be critically assessed.”

Mongabay reached out to 2 native fishers concerning the new MPA. Each are vocal group members and sustain with authorities insurance policies within the space, however neither was beforehand conscious of the brand new MPA. Upon studying about it, they expressed considerations that its declaration may deprive folks of their potential to fish, which is the one means many locals, together with a few of their relations, should earn a residing.

One, who requested to not be named as a result of he’s additionally a authorities worker not approved to talk publicly on the topic, informed Mongabay by cellphone that his group within the city of Dam close to the mouth of the lagoon had been going through a number of points that authorities had by no means tried to handle, together with an absence of cooking gasoline and different fundamental requirements, and uncontrolled fishing by trawlers.

“Placing restrictions would finally deliver our livelihoods to a grinding halt,” he informed Mongabay.

Banner picture: Native fishers at work in Miani Hor Lagoon. Picture courtesy of Muhammad Moazzam Khan.

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