Sarhad Provincial Conservation Strategy - IUCN

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T O W A R D S T H E S A R H A D P R O V I N C I A L C O N S E R V A T I O N S T R A T E G Y
THE GLOBAL CONTEXT
During the 1960s, worsening global environmental
conditions caused significant public concern that
forced the governments of the world to react. United
Nations agencies also began to realize that postwar
reconstruction and development programmes were
insufficient to deal with worsening global conditions
related to poverty, health, and other human development
indicators.
These concerns led to a decision to hold the UN
Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm
in 1972, which focused world attention on the issues
and led to the creation of the United Nations
Environment Programme (UNEP). Most industrial
countries began implementing environment programmes.
New legislation was developed, new
Government departments were established, universities
re-tooled programmes, and thousands of non-governmental
organizations (NGOs)—both national and
international—came into being.
But 1973 was the year of the oil crisis, and many
governments shifted their attention towards the energy
issue, away from the environment. This trend continued
through the 1970s and in this climate, several
of the principal global environmental organizations-
—UNEP, the World Wildlife Fund (now the World
Wide Fund for Nature), and IUCN-The World
Conservation Union—responded by proposing and
then funding the development of a global strategy for
the rational development and conservation of natural
resources. Called the World Conservation Strategy:
Living Resource Conservation for Sustainable
Development (WCS), it was launched in 1980. The
Strategy marked an important watershed for the conservation
community. For the first time, the emphasis
shifted from the preservation of specific species to the
conservation of whole ecosystems necessary for the
survival of these species. As the logical followup to
this global strategy, and with the help of IUCN, in
due course many countries began preparation of
national conservation strategies (NCSS).
In Pakistan, the first Government organization to
receive the WCS was the National Council for the
Conservation of Wildlife in what was then the
26 SARHAD PROVINCIAL CONSERVATION STRATEGY
Ministry of Food, Agriculture, and Cooperatives in
1983. The council's head, the Inspector General of
Forests, asked IUCN to help in the preparation of an
NCS, but it took till 1985 to find a donor and begin
the work of developing a prospectus for the NCS. Yet
some changes for the environment had already
begun: in 1983, the Pakistan Environmental
Protection Ordinance allowed the establishment of a
Pakistan Environmental Protection Council and a
Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency.
On the world scene, two significant reports on the
environment—the Global 2000 report to U.S.
President Jimmy Carter and the scientific report prepared
for the Special Session of the UNEP Governing
Council called to commemorate the 10th anniversary
of Stockholm—showed that the global environmental
situation was worsening. This, along with an economic
development report prepared by the independent
Commission on International Development Issues (the
Brandt Commission), eventually led the UN General
Assembly to recommend the creation of a World
Commission on Environment and Development
(WCED) under the guidance of Gro Harlem
Brundtland, who was then Prime Minister of Norway.
The 21 members of the WCED were well balanced
between industrial and developing countries.
At a meeting in Ottawa in 1986, the Brundtland
Commission reviewed global progress on the implementation
of the WCS. It found that in many cases,
environmental issues remained sectoral initiatives,
ignored by finance and economic planning agencies.
The final report of the Commission was published
as Our Common Future in 1987. WCED argued
forcefully that environmental quality and economic
development were not mutually exclusive. In fact they
were mutually dependent. The report also gave currency
to the term ‘sustainable development’, which it
defined as development that meets the needs of present
generations without jeopardizing the ability of
future generations to meet their own needs.
WCED's report came out just before Pakistan saw
the beginning of the preparation of a National
Conservation Strategy, the revitalization of the
Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency, and the
creation of Environmental Protection Agencies (EPAs)
in the provinces, all in 1988-89.