Project Development:

PAKISTAN

Re-greening of Upper Jehlum Canal (UJC) based on Islamic conservation principles.


OBJECTIVES

This is the first phase of a two-phase project, which will focus on environmental education and attitude change. Its objectives will be to -

• Conduct an educational workshop based on The Qur’an and Shariah aimed at decision makers and religious teachers.
  
  
• Rehabilitate the Upper Jehlum Canal banks in the target zone.
  
  
• Establish and maintain hema and harim zones in accordance with the Sunna to ensure its continued protection.
  
  
• Evaluate the application of this model to the entire Jehlum Canal Basin.

LOCATION

The project will be located on an 8 Km. length of the Upper Jehlum Canal bank From Chachian, District Mirpur. Azad Kashmir, and will incorporate the following villages; Dub, New Luddar, Pindi Subarwal, Mary, Afzalpur and Pul-Manda.

BACKGROUND

The UJC is 120km long and 150m wide, it originates from the Mangla Dam where water after its use for power generation is diverted down it. The canal runs parallel to the Mangla to Jehlum Road. The North side of the canal is also linked to the main transport route from Mirpur to Jehlum via Jatlan. The South side is a "traffic free zone" and it is this "green side" that is constantly being degraded by both public and private use. After over thirty five years of exploitation and neglect the banks of the UJC are an eyesore. The most defining features of the green side were its tall trees surrounded by other vegetation and the flourishing wildlife. Today all that has changed. Dry, bare ground has replaced grass; shrivelled stumps have replaced once proud trees. Wildlife that flourished in this area is now non-existent; crows, parrots, cranes, eagles, foxes, and rabbits are not to be seen any more.

This degradation is of human origin. Reasons for this include development projects like road building programmes that have not taken into account the needs of the local people, high levels of corruption and years of gross mismanagement by various organisations. If any sort of rehabilitation programme is to succeed, then significant changes in attitudes and values are required. This applies to both public authorities and local people.

It should also be noted that the area houses extremely poor people who chop trees for firewood and exploit the land for subsistence farming. There is a need here to provide local people both an educational programme that will make them aware of the consequences of their own actions and alternative economic activity that will encourage them to protect the environment for their own good.

IMPLEMENTATION

The long term objective of this project will be to restore the bed and the banks of the Upper Jehlum Canal to the beautiful area that it once was. Replanting approximately 50,000 indigenous trees on the banks of the canal. Community participation will be encouraged where experiments in environmental protection and sustainable living will be tried out. The first phase will be implemented as follows -

LEAD ORGANISATIONS AND CONTACT PERSONS

A. Principal Afzalpur Government College.

B. Principal Afzalpur College for Girls.
C. Prof. Ahmed Din Moughal, Pindi Subarwal.
D. Safdar Hussain UK, Pindi Subarwal.
E. Mohammed Boota UK, New Luddar.
F. Dr. Abdul Karim Choudhary, Dub
G. Asif Mahmood & Ch. Tahir Rashid, New Luddar.
H. Ch. Sarfraz, Sarfraz Welfare Association Chachian.
Haji Shaukat, Pul Munda.
WAPDA Canal Management.

Mohammad Khalid
Field Officer IFEES
Telephone - 00 44 (0)121 440 8218
Fax – 00 44 (0)121 440 8144 Email
Email – [email protected]; [email protected]