A Khunjerab Workshop Gone Awry

Why did the participants of a workshop discussing the future of the spectacular Khunjerab National Park (in Northern Pakistan) recommend that a rigid system be adopted which would ban the local villagers' traditional access to grazing lands within what is today the Park area?

Knjerab National Park in the Karakoram mountains of Northern Pakistan was set up by the Pakistani Government in 1975. Adjacent to the Taxkorgan Wildlife Reserve in China, the 2,600 sq km park is one of the highest in the world. Scenically attractive, it is a sanctuary for many high-altitude mammals in need of protection, the foremost among them being the Marco Polo sheep, the snow leopard and the Tibetan wild ass.

When it was established, the Park's main purpose was to provide protection for its dwindling wildlife populations. Illegal hunting was considered the main threat to these species, as well as habitat deterioration from excessive grazing and fuelwood collection. During the construction of the Karakoram Highway in the late 1960s, the local population of Marco Polo sheep was nearly exterminated by poaching, mainly by Pakistani road crews and security personnel. It is reported that non-resident government officials also participated in the decimation of the sheep population near the Pakistan-China pass. This was a sharp departure from earlier times when hunting control was exercised by the Mix of Hunza.

Despite its being declared a national park, however, nothing was done to actually develop Khunjerab. Following reports of environmental degradation from overgrazing, forest-cutting and poaching, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) was finally asked by the Government to study the Park's ecological status, including land-use practices, and make recommendations for a plan to manage the park. I surveyed Khunjerab in the autumn of 1988 as part of the IUCN study. IUCN's report reached the conclusion that the human-nature conflict in the Park was not excessive. It recommended that the area be enlarged and developed into a multipurpose conservation area (or biosphere reserve) which would properly integrate environmental needs and the local people's use of the area.

Bearing in mind that Pakistan's National Parks regulations call for restrictions on traditional grazing rights, which are bound to arouse strong resentment locally, the IUCN proposal called for zoning• the expanded Park into sections — areas where there would be full protection for wildlife, where there would be controlled grazing, and where professional hunting would be allowed. Both the goals of protecting important fauna and guaranteeing sustainable use of the natural resources by the indigenous people would have been achieved. In fact, the proposal was similar to the successful pioneering approach to conservation launched in the Annapurna Conservation Area in central Nepal.

After the IUCN proposals were presented, a ten-day workshop was organised by Pakistan's newly established National Council for Conservation of Wildlife (NCCW) in June 1989. The participants –foreign professionals, conservation agency representatives and Pakistani officials — made a quick visit to Khunjerab with short excursions into the nullahs (side valleys) along the Karakoram Highway. They also met with some villages near the western boundary of the Park.

The workshop rejected the proposal to establish a biosphere reserve. Instead, it agreed to phase out ail grazing in Khunjerab over a period of several years. It concluded — not unanimously — that the only proper conservation model for Khunjerab was to develop it into a National Park, strictly construed. There would be total prohibition of human activity. In order to compensate the local people, the workshop proposed a number of rural development projects in the villages adjacent to the park, for which funding would come largely from foreign donors.

(Why did the workshop choose such a rigid approach to management of Khunjerab?)

A web of socio-political factors are involved. To begin with, Pakistan lacks a well-trained staff in wildlife conservation. Wildlife and protected areas are managed by forestry personnel with little background on multiple use of natural resources and even less appreciation of local people's traditional rights. The existing political structure tends to enforce this aloofness from human concerns. The laws and management regulations for forests and mountain pastures have, of course, been developed by urban bureaucrats. District officers are more concerned with implementing such centralised legislation than exploring the best solutions to resources management at the local level.

Another reason is that the NCCW, based in Islamabad as it is, occupies itself with designing and implementing conservation policies at a national level. This office tends to rely overly on conservation needs as articulated by international agencies. A National Park has the potential of generating fax more tourism revenue than, say a biosphere reserve. and this is attractive to the central treasury.

Changing the park status and expanding it into a biosphere reserve would require new legislation because the present Northern Areas Wildlife Preservation Act (1975) does not allow for it. The conversion would therefore require extensive bureaucratic procedures. In the eye of the bureaucrat, issuing a national park directive is much simpler. Another reason for pushing for a national park might have been that the Government would receive more international funding, including money for compensatory programmes for the local communities.

Another possible reason: the participating expatriate "experts" clearly had only a superficial understanding of the ecological status of Khunjerab. None of them had been to the area before, and their only contact with the "locals" was an improvised interview with village representatives. More importantly, their terms of reference dealt with the formulation of management plans for a national park and did not allow for other options.

On the whole, all the workshop participants failed to take seriously the vehement opposition of the village representatives to the restrictive national parks idea. The plea of endangering traditional lifestyles through restrictions on grazing clearly fell on deaf years. The participants also failed to recognise that the ecological status of Khunjerab might actually be better than what they must have heard or read. Neither did they consider for a moment that livestock grazing can be compatible with conservation objectives.

The workshop's proposal to establish community projects was obviously well-intended. The aim was to compensate the area's inhabitants for the loss of grazing rights and associated incomes, and also for improving the local standard of living. However, given past grievances and existing suspicion, it is uncertain that locals will participate in governmentled programmes.

What will happen next? The Government of Pakistan will study the workshop's recommendations and decide on their implementation. It can be expected that the villages adjoining the park will vigorously oppose the recommendations. The Government may try to reach an understanding with the villagers by asking the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme, a group located in Gilgit which works closely with the region's village organisations, to initiate development projects outside the Park to compensate villagers for loss of grazing. However, the Programme could prove reluctant to push a project which takes direct aim the villagers' traditional lifestyles. Livestock, after all, represents far more than just capital in the culture of mountain people.

Conservation groups such as IUCN have publicly spoken up for a more people-oriented approach to conservation and for integrating land-use practices as integral parts of long term, sustainable use of natural resources. Many specialists have emphasised that conservation efforts in developing countries cannot, and should not, follow guidelines which were originally practised in the developed world. The influence of villagers on the use of their own resources is a must for developing a harmonious relationship between public authorities and local communities.

In conclusion, one has to think twice before imposing new activities and means of subsistence on hill people, who have over centuries evolved lifestyles and traditions intimately linked to the land and livestock. What the Khunjerab workshop has done reflects a parental attitude towards minority ethnic groups. There are two requirements that should be met before initiating projects to replace traditional use of resources: proven need and local support. Neither condition seems to exist in Khunjerab.