Overview

• At a Karachi Press Club session on September 19, environmental experts, lawyers, planners and civil society unanimously adopted a resolution to safeguard the city’s natural drainage and ecological balance.
• The resolution seeks formal recognition of the Malir and Lyari as living waterways, the removal of encroachments and illegal structures, and a halt to future construction within natural channels.
• It calls for permanent green‑zone status for peri‑urban areas including Malir, Gadap, Moedan and Kathore, restoration of leased or grabbed lands to farmers, and subsidies to bolster local food production.
• Participants demanded strict enforcement of the ban on sand and gravel extraction, a total ban on dumping toxic industrial waste into waterways, curbs on unchecked groundwater extraction, and programs to restore mangroves.
• Further works on Shahrae Bhutto should undergo an impartial environmental assessment, with any newly exposed land near the Malir river used for forest development, and no government adoption of the resolution has been reported.