(Published in The Nation Pakistan)
The students from these ‘education networks’ come out with only one agenda: Islamic supremacy. Humanity seems to get lost somewhere on the way. And when that is the only thing you know, when you have not been given the chance to learn other things and to question what is being taught, the end result, more often than not, is what we see happening in the country right now.
We undertook an economic valuation of mangrove forests in Balochistan province of Pakistan drawing on primary data from a survey of 80 households depending on mangrove forests. It was found that the direct value of mangroves was USD 1,287 per hectare, while the total value for the village was calculated to be USD 4,419,935. We found that rich households made more absolute use of the mangrove products and services and the poor made more relative use. Any decrease in the quality of this ecosystem would expose the poor to the worst effects of poverty. We argue that investments in mangrove conservation under comanagement regime in this region of Pakistan make ecological and economic sense.
