By conducting technical lectures to raise awareness to take positive environmental initiatives to protect nature and the planet earth, Pakistan Engineering Congress (PEC) celebrated the World Environment Protection Day in Lahore. The event was attended by senior engineers and professionals from various walks of life.
PEC President Engineer Ch Ghulam Hussain appealed to the government to allow free entry to all citizens to the national parks of Pakistan. While addressing the seminar he said this year’s World Environment Day is an ideal occasion to go out and enjoy your country’s national parks and other wilderness areas. Park authorities in some countries may follow Canada’s example and waive or reduce park entry fees on June 5 or for a longer period.
The theme designated by the United Nations for this year was “Connecting People to Nature: in the Cities; on the Land; from the Poles to the Equator.”
“The theme invites people to think about how we are part of nature and how intimately we depend on it. It challenges us to find fun and exciting ways to experience and cherish this vital relationship,” Ghulam Hussain said.
He said that initiative helps general public for doing something positive for the environment. He called for creating harmony between humanity and nature so that both are able to thrive.
Ghulam Hussain said every year the theme of World Environment Day is carefully selected to cover various aspects relating to Environmental issues facing the humanity, affecting the lives of the people and the surroundings of their habitats.
He also said in recent decades scientific advances as well as growing environmental problems such as global warming, are helping us to understand the countless ways in which natural systems support our own prosperity and wellbeing. For example, world’s oceans, forests and soils act as vast stores for greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, farmers and fisher folk harness nature on land and under water to provide us with food, scientists develop medicines using genetic material drawn from the millions of species that make up Earth’s astounding biological diversity.
He said millions of rural people around the world spend every working day “connected to nature” and appreciate full well their dependence on natural water supplies and how nature provides their livelihoods in the form of fertile soil? They are among the first to suffer when ecosystems are threatened, whether by pollution, climate change or over-exploitation.
President PEC also said Nature’s gifts are often hard to value in monetary terms. Like clean air, they are often taken for granted, at least until they become scarce. However, economists are developing ways to measure the multi-trillion-dollar worth of many so-called ecosystem services from insects pollinating fruit trees in the orchards of California to the leisure health and spiritual benefits of hike up into a Himalayan / Karakoram valley.
