Written by: Dr. Dushka H. Saiyid
Posted on: June 19, 2023 | 
| 中文
Rina Saeed with Wildlife Guards
Rina Saeed Khan is an award-winning environmental journalist of Pakistan, who received the international Earth Journalism Award in Copenhagen in 2009 for her climate change reporting. With a Master’s in Environment and Development from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), she brings dedication and commitment to her work as the Chair of the Islamabad Wildlife Management Board. Rina’s passion for conserving the ecology and environment often result in clashes with commercial interests and encroachers, whose only interest is financial gain at the cost of the environment of the Margalla Hills National Park (MHNP). It is relevant to point out that all the members of the Board and its Chair, work voluntarily and are not paid, and it is just a labor of love for them.
Trail 5 during the rainy season
When asked about the challenges that her Board is facing, she listed three that have affected the work of IWMB: political instability, encroachments, and the lack of funding. It’s a small Board that looks after 17000 hectares (42,000 acres) right next to the capital city of Islamabad. One major handicap of shortage of funding is that they do not have enough Wildlife Guards on the ground, and consequently, corners of the MHNP like Shah Allahditta and the area near the Quaid-i-Azam University are neglected. They have about 22 Wildlife Guards in place, and they used to be on daily wages but now they have become government servants. Because of the limited number of Wildlife Guards, they focus on the core zone of the national park, which is the area directly opposite F6, F7, F8, F9 and F10. This is where most of the wildlife is flourishing.
Wildlife Guards
When I queried her about the kind of encroachments that were taking place in the MHNP, she said that there were three: institutional, commercial and residential. There are thirty-two villages inside the national park, and it’s a very complicated picture. The Capital Development Authority (CDA) had paid many of the villagers when the MHNP was notified in 1980, and gave them alternative land, but while some of the villagers left, others stayed on. You can see some of these villages from the Ridge Trail, which is yet to be officially opened. The Islamabad High Court (IHC) issued an order against encroachments in the MHNP in the middle of last year, 2022. It declared the encroachment by the Monal Restaurant illegal, questioned the legality of the Naval Golf Course, and the claims of the Remount Veterinary Force (RVF) to 8000 acres in the heart of the MHNP. Monal has got temporary relief from the Supreme Court, but the case has now gone into Inter-Court Appeal or ICA, and eventually will be decided by the Supreme Court. There are other restaurants that are also present in the national park, including La Montana and Gloria Jeans, and others are waiting in the wings to get permission to open their doors there. Not only is this causing traffic jams on the road going to Pir Sohawa, but garbage and litter is a big menace. While the restaurants send some of the garbage down, a significant amount is thrown in the national park. Those going up the Pir Sohawa Road in their SUVs, cars, and motorbikes, have been littering the road as they drive up. It will take a Herculean drive to clean up the sides of the road which is littered all the way up.
Chair of IWMB meeting forestry students at the Trail 5 Visitor Information Centre
The Islamabad High Court order asked for the demarcation of the villages by the CDA and the Islamabad Survey of Pakistan. The current Chairman CDA, Mr Noor ul Amin Mengal has been cooperating with us and has been very helpful, and CDA is planning to put fencing in some places for demarcating the boundaries of the villages. The CDA and the Revenue Department have all the records. The Faisal Mosque has been built on MHNP land and the Naval Golf Course has taken over part of it as well. The Navy has illegally built a sailing club on the Rawal Lake and there is a court order against it, but everything is on hold because of the messy political situation. In fact, Banigalla has come up in areas that were once a part of the MHNP, but we would like to save the Lake, which is home to migratory birds. For now, our objective is to mark the boundary of the MHNP, because even the Defence Complex of Islamabad (DCI) is slowly going into the Hills. The Saidpur village is also expanding into the hills and must be stopped through demarcation.
Porcupine caught by a camera trap at night
My predecessor, Dr Anis-ur-Rahman, took five years to establish the IWMB, and I have consolidated it. Our Board meets at least once a month, if not more, and we would like it to remain independent. All our meetings are minuted, while our accounts are audited by the government. Vaqar Zakaria was a member of the previous Board and is also our Board member, in charge of operations and settling in the new management staff that was recruited last year. He is now preparing a management plan through Hagler Bailly for IMWB. He has put together a management team consisting of a Director, Deputy and Assistant Directors of Wildlife, Deputy Director Admin, accountant etc. The Islamabad Zoo was shut down by an IHC court order before I took over and we have now turned it into a rescue and rehabilitation centre for injured/poached wildlife. The new Margalla Avenue passes through a small section of the MHNP, because of which we have done a land swap, and we have been given the Zoo land by CDAs board. Free the Wild, an international NGO, is going to help us set up a proper sanctuary on the zoo premises, as we have a little over 25 acres of land. They are the ones who sent the elephant Kaavan to a sanctuary in Cambodia. We get calls from other wildlife departments, for example from Azad Kashmir that we have an injured leopard, and we’ll send one of our pick-ups to get the injured animal. We don’t have a properly designed rescue center yet, but we have made a PC 2 for now. Raza Ali Dada, himself an environmentalist, has created a conceptual design for us which will cost Rs 500 million. We were hoping to get this money in this budget, but if not, we will just carry on as we are doing currently with makeshift arrangements. We have so far rescued six black bears (4 from dancing on the streets of Punjab) and one Bengal Tiger. The latter had been kept without sunlight as a pet, and his bones were very weak. We have nursed him back to health with the help of our volunteers and are trying to send him to South Africa because he is not an indigenous animal and very expensive to maintain.
Bears rescued by IWMB
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