ASAD ZIA
PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN: Last week, I visited an empty school in District Nowshera, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa one of the most flood and rain affected province of Pakistan in 2022. The boundary walls of this school was fully damaged while the signboard which mentioned its name was laying on ground which indicate that it’s a girls primary school for Nowshera Kala, children of Nowshera District.
A resident of Nowshera Kala Mr Shakirullah informed that around 150 female students were enrolled in this school while they still deprived to getting education as their school has fully damaged and all the rooms and walls have destroyed due to recent flood and heavy rain.
According to the Elementary and Secondary Education official figures the recent monstrous floods and rain have damaged 1,100 government schools in different part of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, impacting the studies of thousands students.
Schools in every part of Pakistan are not clearly ready for the change to the climate that are already here, and its time they got ready, because our schools aren’t just threatened by climate, they are also key part of the solution.
Syed M. Saqib Saleem Assistant Professor of Mass Communication at Forman Christian College Lahore and co-editor of MediaClimate Network opinion that we need our youth to be mobilized and lead it from the forefronts. Thus, it’s very important to teach ecology, environmental sciences or basic climate science courses at the school level so students are sensitized about climate change and global warming.
It’s very hard to develop students’ interest in climate journalism or climate science at the university level. As sometimes students come from various educational backgrounds like arts or humanities so they are not aware of the specific jargons used in it like flora or fauna, greenhouse gases etc.
Syed M. Saqib Saleem
For this it’s equally important that teachers are also well aware of climate science so they can build up a good base for students. Otherwise students would not develop interest in it. Even when I talk about my own students, most of them are not aware of SDGs, but when I try to engage them in such topics, they don’t develop an interest in it as they have to start from zero.
I believe compared to the government, the development sector is working on the climate crisis more and are bringing initiatives to not only aware people about climate change but also take part in climate mitigation and climate adaptation strategies.
UN Biodiversity Conference (COP 15)
Currently, the Conference of Parties (COP) 15TH meeting to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is underway in Montreal, Canada from December 7 to 19, 2022.
Whereas, around 10,000 delegates from more than 190 countries and members states, engaging in important negotiations to seal a landmark agreement, the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, aimed to halt and reverse nature loss.
During the 2022 UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15), the University of Oxford and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) announce a new global initiative to drive the world’s higher education sector towards a greener future as part of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.
Through the Nature Positive Universities Alliance, 117 Universities have already taken an official pledge and begun assessing their environmental impact, in order to make tailored actions to improve their ecological footprint on our planet.
A further 408 Universities worldwide have joined the broader Nature Positive University network to work together for nature on their campuses, supported by a global student ambassador programme
During the COP15 an important agreement also signed by the University of Cambridge and United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) secretariat on the third day which will pave the way for capacity building on biodiversity among different countries of the globe.
This agreement will accelerate the exchange of biodiversity experts and conservation leaders which will enable knowledge exchange for the effective implementation of biodiversity framework across the world.
Like the other countries, Pakistan is also included those countries whereas on universities level some courses are offering on environmental sciences and biodiversity. Agriculture Universities, Centre for Plant Science and Biodiversity, University of Swat Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has also a specific course on the Biological Diversity and there are some online courses on the same topic but all of them are for universities students.
UNESCO Findings
According to UNESCO some recent findings to underscore the urgency of this mission, around half of 100 countries the organization reviewed had no mention of climate change in their national curriculum.
While 95 percent of 58,000 primary and secondary teachers in 2021 felt that teaching climate change is important, just 32 percent felt they can explain climate change in their local context.
However, in overall Pakistan the primary and high school syllabuses do not have any relevant knowledge about the importance or techniques of biodiversity.
University of Peshawar (UOP) Professor Dr Fazal Rabbi shared that the recent floods in Pakistan, melting of glaciers and dangerous smog has alarmed the policymakers that the knowledge of biodiversity should be given from the grass root level through high school curriculum to familiar the youth with the importance of forestation wild life care and many other basic concepts of biodiversity.
He informed that biodiversity is essential for human health and well-being, economic prosperity, food safety and security, and other areas critical to all humans and all human societies.
Unfortunately, Biodiversity is declining faster than it has at any other time in human history, people represent just 0.01 percent of all living creatures, but have still caused the loss of 83 percent of all wild mammals and half of plants in just the last 100 years,
Fazal Rabbi shared
According to the environmental specialists the recently occurring climate change has explored the new dimensions of knowledge about the ecosystem and biodiversity which is considered essential for the safety of every bio organism. The complicated question of climate change and its effects on the globe can only be answered through evidence based research. Many threats which disturbed the balance of ecosystem can poorly be understood by the common people.
However, in Pakistan the climate change is the whole and sole cause of devastating floods in 2022. The climate effects have destabilized the rivers due to certain reasons. Due to The demand of increased construction Illegal rock mining and sand mining has changed the natural flow of the rivers and intense rainfall generated mudflow from the rivers which paved the way for massive floods. Another reason is Illegal human encroachment and construction of commercial and residential buildings on rivers edges.
The experts believe that being in contact with nature is not only important for physical health but it also nurtures our mental capabilities. The knowledge of biodiversity is not purely science based but it is the learning process about our environment that how we can protect our planet.
Dr Muhammad Ashfaq Khan, a PhD scholar shared that on government school level in 9th and 10th class the biodiversity subject teach. He suggested that there should need to make it more update and practical.
“Our children even our teachers are unaware of climate change and biodiversity, he requested concerned education department to update the existing course and make it more practical,” Dr Muhammad Ashfaq Khan, a PhD scholar Univerisyt of Peshawar.
This story was produced as part of Internews’ Earth Journalism Network Fellowship Program to the CBD COP15 Summit in Montreal, Canada.
