Mangroves conservation highlighted for climate regulation
By Our Correspondent KARACHI: Speakers at a moot on the importance of mangrove conservation and its expansion across the country’s coastline have expressed concern that the types of mangrove species in the Indus Delta has reduced by 50 per cent during the last many years, whereas cutting of mangroves for fuel, fodder and grazing had been posing direct threat to the mangrove ecosystem. Two institutions of the University of Karachi—Muhammad Ajmal Khan Institute of Sustainable Halophyte Utilisation (MAK-ISHU) and Institute of Environmental Studies (IES) jointly organised a seminar to mark the World Mangroves Day, with the collaboration of the Sindh Forest Department at KU, recently. The Chief Conservator of the Forest Department, Riaz Ahmed Wagan, informed the audience that the Indus Delta located in Thatta, Sujawal, Badin and Karachi had shown the existence of eight species of mangroves in the past, but, at present, only four of them are found, i.e., Avicennia marina, Rhizophora ...