Background: The Pakistan Wetlands Programme (PWP) aims to promote the sustainable conservation of freshwater and marine wetlands and their associated globally important biodiversity in Pakistan. The programme strategy is based on two sub-sets of objectives. The first will provide the required policy, institutional, technical and financial framework and generate positive public support essential for the mainstreaming of wetlands conservation. The second involves the design and implementation of Sustainable, participatory management plans for four independent Demonstration Sites, each chosen to be representative of a broad eco-region in Pakistan. It includes specific mechanisms to secure financial sustainability and enhanced replication and proliferation of viable wetlands management interventions in a nation-wide, on-going wetlands conservation initiative.

Despite the generally arid nature of Pakistan's climate, the region supports an estimated 780,000 ha of wetlands that cover 9.7% of the total surface area of the country.
In excess of 225 significant wetlands sites are on record in the prototype Pakistan Wetlands GIS Database developed during the PDF (B) Phase of this Project. Nineteen of these have been internationally recognised by the Ramsar Convention Bureau as being of global importance. The diverse assortment of natural freshwater and marine wetlands that occur within Pakistan support unique combinations of biodiversity. The same resource, however, also sustains an estimated 144 million permanent human residents and 3-4 million displaced persons from adjacent countries. The wetlands of the region are, therefore, generally degrading under a broad spectrum of anthropogenic threats that are mainly rooted in poverty but exacerbated by lack of knowledge and mismanagement.
Global Significance

Pakistan's permanent and ephemeral wetlands are globally significant in two ways: first, in terms of the intrinsic value of their indigenous biodiversity and secondly, as an acute example of the poverty/subsistence-use nexus that constitutes one of the most fundamental threats to biodiversity worldwide. The high global significance of Pakistan's wetlands is attributable to the diversity of species that they support. In all, eighteen threatened species of wetlands dependent mammals are found in the country including the endemic Punjab Urial (Ovis vignei punjabiensis) and Indus River Dolphin (Plantanista minor). Further, twenty threatened bird species are supported by Pakistan's wetlands in addition to twelve reptiles and two endemic species of amphibians. Pakistan's wetlands also support between 191-198 indigenous freshwater fish species, including fifteen endemics and a total of 788 marine and estuarine fish species. The high altitude wetlands, characterised by sites such as Karumbar Lake, situated at an elevation of 4, 150m, and Saucher Lake, at 4,250m on the Deosai Plains, represent a relatively unique category of alpine wetlands that is confined to the Himalaya, Hindukush and Karakoram mountain cordilleras.

For more information please refer to Wetlands Programme Document.

Programme Rationale

Broad Development Goals
As a developing country faced with political and economic instability, Pakistan has serious and varied economic problems. A key development challenge for the country is to promote economic growth and an equitable income distribution without degrading its natural resources. Despite its difficult economic conditions, Pakistan has striven to make environmental issues a priority. At the provincial, territorial and national level, the country is endeavouring to reduce poverty while conserving its natural resources. The Pakistan Wetlands Programme fits well within Pakistan’s development goals by aiming to promote equitable sharing of natural resources, securing rights-of-access, especially for poor communities, diversifying livelihoods, improving the income earning potential of stakeholder communities and creating incentives for sustainable wetlands management. The Programme will advance the GoP’s recent initiatives for devolution of power to provincial and local levels by developing the capacity and wetlands management skills of provincial institutions and strengthening community-based organisations.

Country Driven-ness
Pakistan has demonstrated its fundamental commitment to biodiversity conservation in general and wetlands conservation in particular through its support for appropriate international conventions. The adoption of a Wetlands Action Plan in 2000 further illustrates the GoP’s recognition of the importance of wetlands and the need to find sustainable solutions for their conservation. Additionally, the GoP’s support for wetlands conservation is evident from the contribution provided to the Pakistan Wetlands Programme during the PDF (B) phase. This included active participation in Programme formulation, involvement in field surveys and the facilitation of site selection. The pledged involvement of government agencies personnel and facilities during the implementation phase of the Programme will further bolster the GoP’s capacity and support for wetlands conservation. The GoP agencies involved in Programme formulation have committed to sustainable institutional backing for wetlands conservation. The recent initiatives by GoP facilitating the devolution of power to district and tehsil level provide a strengthened context for implementation of such initiatives at the site level.

Global Environmental Objectives
Pakistan’s wetlands support a wide spectrum of globally important biodiversity that merits support from the international community to ensure its sustainable conservation. A significant fraction of Pakistan’s wetlands-dependent biodiversity is classified as endemic threatened and vulnerable in internationally recognized evaluations such as IUCN’s Red Data Book. Furthermore, international conventions such as Ramsar have recognised the role that Pakistan’s wetlands play in maintaining and sustaining regional ecological processes that support globally important biodiversity such as bird migration routes and wintering grounds. While the country is making efforts to conserve its wetlands, it is constrained in this task by lack of access to physical and financial resources and immediate political and economic problems.

With support from the GEF, the proposed Programme offers a proactive opportunity to create an enabling environment that is essential to conserve all of Pakistan’s wetlands. Further, the Programme initiatives in four Demonstration Complexes provide a much-needed opportunity for the application of proven conservation methods and development of innovative regionally appropriate and sustainable approaches to address site-specific issues. Lessons generated within the Project will be relevant for ongoing wetlands conservation initiatives both within and outside Pakistan for evaluation and application to similar efforts in other regions and countries. Significant features of replicability are expected to include the approaches developed to integrate communities in wetlands management, providing alternate livelihoods to wetlands-dependent vulnerable groups and developing mechanisms for financial sustainability in a “resource strained” economy. Such issues confront wetlands conservation in other countries as well and the success of measures implemented under the Pakistan Wetlands Programme will provide useful guidance to the international community.

Programme Outputs and Expected Results

Output 1: Sustainable institutions are established to provide national level coordination for the conservation of wetlands biodiversity in Pakistan and to promote the dissemination of lesson learned, especially from programme Demonstration Complexes.

Output 2: Planning and land-use decision-making of wetlands conservation agencies at all levels is enhanced through the provision of comprehensive, current wetlands information, decision support systems and tools utilising spatial and other data from the Wetlands GIS Database.

Output 3: A National Wetlands Conservation Strategy (NWCS) is developed, officially adopted and implemented at federal, provincial/territorial and community level.

Output 4: Technical competence of government agencies and CBO conservation staff is enhanced through comprehensive training and capacity building programme.

Output 5: A nation-wide awareness campaign is designed and implemented.

Output 6: Elements of long-term sustainability of wetlands conservation initiatives are developed and adopted.

Output 7: Wetlands biodiversity is sustainably conserved in the Makran Coastal Wetlands Complex (MCWC) by designing and implementing a comprehensive Management Plan.

Output 8: Wetlands biodiversity is sustainably conserved in the Central Indus Wetlands Complex (CIWC) by designing and implementing a comprehensive Management Plan.

Output 9: Wetlands biodiversity is sustainably conserved in the Salt Range Wetlands Complex (SRWC) by designing and implementing a comprehensive Management Plan.

Output 10: Wetlands biodiversity is sustainably conserved in the North-west Alpine Wetlands Complex (NAWC) by designing and implementing a comprehensive Management Plan.

For more information please see Wetlands Programme Document