Environment
Living Indus
An unhealthy Indus Basin is unaffordable for a nation like Pakistan, which the Global Climate Risk Index ranks as the eighth most vulnerable country to climate change.
One of the world’s three earliest civilizations thrived around it. It has sustained Pakistan for more than 5,000 years. Ninety percent of the country’s economy depends on it, with 80 percent of Pakistan’s arable lands irrigated by its waters. For you reading this, you may have made a journey around it or seen the Indus River in photographs.
An unhealthy Indus Basin is unaffordable for a nation like Pakistan, which the Global Climate Risk Index ranks as the eighth most vulnerable country to climate change. Pakistan is currently experiencing an age of adaptation, with major water issues brought on by climate change due to the unpredictable nature of melting glaciers and the nature of monsoons that threaten floods.
With the ecology of the Indus system facing grave challenges, the Living Indus Initiative was developed by the Ministry of Climate Change and the United Nations in Pakistan under the directives of the Prime Minister’s Committee on Climate Change for the Government of Pakistan in 2021. The initiative aims to restore more than 30 percent of Pakistan’s Indus River Basin by 2030 by boosting biodiversity, climate mitigation, and community resilience through nature-based solutions. Recently, this project was named one of the seven United Nations (UN) World Restoration Flagships – awards which are part of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration – led by the UN Environment Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN – which aims to prevent, halt, and reverse the degradation of ecosystems on every continent and in every ocean.
“Given its breadth and scale, encompassing a whole country and its future, the Indus River initiative stands out for its ambitious impact. Restoration efforts include river health improvement, biodiversity conservation, habitat restoration, pollution reduction, and sustainable water management across the entire river basin. These efforts enhance biodiversity and ecosystem resilience and contribute to carbon sequestration and climate change mitigation,” says Humaira Jahanzeb, Team Lead of the Living Indus Initiative.
With six years left until 2030, is the project on track to achieve its targets? Jahanzeb, the project’s team lead, mentions, “The Living Indus is a long-term programme that is spread over the next 10 to 15 years, entailing 25 interventions that have been assigned implementation time frames – long, medium and short term. The programme itself does not set a target of 2030, but for much longer, as it will realistically need decades to restore the basin, but it sets some targets in each intervention for 2030. The interventions are classified across multiple parameters, such as their connection to meeting the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Pakistan’s Nationally Determined Contributions. Each of the 25 interventions specifies which of the 17 SDGs the intervention meets.”
World Restoration Projects – a case of global optics?
Landing in the League of World Restoration Projects, one may ask whether these projects are mere optics or carry some weight. Dr. Saeed Ud Din Ahmed, Associate Professor, Department of Architecture and Planning at the NED University of Engineering and Technology, says, “World Restoration Projects do have weight, at least the importance of it, in theory, and logic, cannot be challenged. Such top-down approaches do have good budget allocations as well. However, the debate should be about whether such projects can bring a change while dealing with projects involving environment, ecology, and communities, which requires the active involvement of the communities at the grassroots level.”
For Dr. Saeed, any top-down project needs similar support from the bottom up to make it sustainable, even when the project is over and the funding has finished. “Such projects need to have a sustainability component, especially in terms of empowering the locals to take the lead in the future,” he added.
“Communities are at the heart of our work on restoring the basin’s health,” stresses Jahanzeb, the Living Indus initiative’s lead. “The idea and scope of the Indus was refined through a series of consultations at the provincial and district levels – through a rigorous dialogue with communities and those most affected by climate change, including women and the youth. Within the list of parameters used to explain each of the interventions, a key legend around the community metre measures the level of engagement with communities required to implement the intervention, with most requiring a high level of engagement with communities.”
The Road to Adaptation
Is Pakistan, through this project, on the right track to adapt and mitigate in the face of climate change? According to Dr. Waqar Ahmed, Assistant Professor, Institute of Environmental Studies, University of Karachi, “Pakistan is taking significant steps by implementing the Living Indus initiative, which includes a ‘living’ menu of 25 preliminary interventions, which are designed to protect, conserve, and restore ecosystems in the Indus Basin. Projects like this are crucial for Pakistan, which is highly vulnerable to climate change, primarily due to its dependence on the Indus River for water resources. The project aims to restore the ecological health of the Indus within Pakistan’s boundaries, focusing on nature-based solutions and ecosystem-based adaptation approaches.”
Being a transboundary river, are restoration efforts within Pakistan’s boundaries enough to have an impact in keeping in check that climate change does not distinguish any political boundaries? “Restoration efforts within Pakistan can have a substantial impact on the Indus River. Local actions can improve water quality, biodiversity, and ecosystem health, which can contribute to the overall well-being of the river system,” says Dr. Ahmed, Professor at KU’s Institute of Environmental Studies.
The Role of International Collaborations
Jahanzeb, the project lead of Living Indus, highlights the importance of international collaboration in addressing shared challenges. “The Living Indus programme engages in partnerships with regional and international organizations, as well as neighbouring countries within the Indus River basin, to promote knowledge sharing, capacity building, and joint initiatives for climate resilience and sustainable development.” Recalling one such recent meeting, she mentioned the 4th Regional Upper Indus Basin Network Annual Meeting led by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, the objective of which was to promote regional cooperation through collaborative platforms such as the UIBN, where researchers, policymakers, and practitioners share their knowledge and experiences.
What about the on-ground challenges that may hamper the progress of the project? Governance, institutional capacity, funding, and resource constraints are the areas Jahanzeb specifies as being under the banner of challenges. “Weak governance structures, inadequate enforcement of environmental regulations, and limited institutional capacity hinder effective management and conservation efforts in the Indus River basin. Limited funding, competing priorities, and resource constraints pose barriers to implementing large-scale restoration projects in the Indus River basin.”
According to the Living Indus – Investing in Ecological Restoration document, ‘The required annual investment for climate change adaptation has been estimated to be US$7 billion to US$14 billion’. Does that make this project financially viable?
“Funding synopsis for the programme has been prepared that looks into a mix of traditional and non-traditional funding streams that aim to mobilise US$17 billion over the next 10 to 15 years – these include vertical funds, bilateral, multilateral donors including banks, blended finance and non-conventional funding sources such as philanthropy,” elaborates Jahanzeb, with each intervention being funded and owned both geographically by the provinces and having multiple sources of funding, making this project a movement for restoration by the people of Pakistan.
The Way Forward
Restoring one of the world’s most significant river systems is possible by addressing institutional barriers and promoting policy and governance reforms, which are critical for creating an enabling environment for restoration. Advocating for transparent, inclusive, and participatory decision-making processes can help overcome regulatory hurdles and facilitate the implementation of effective conservation measures.
Achieving meaningful results in ecosystem restoration requires sustained commitment and investment over the long term. Recognizing the inherent complexities and challenges in restoring large river systems like the Indus River basin underscores the importance of patience, perseverance, and ongoing support from stakeholders at all levels.
The writer is a communications professional and a UN Volunteer. She can be reached at mariaamkahn@gmail.com
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