The Hindu : Support for `Siachen Peace Park' plan

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Oct 15, 2003

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Support for `Siachen Peace Park' plan

By Aarti Dhar

NEW DELHI Oct. 14. A proposal to convert the Siachen glacier into a peace park, mooted by some ecologists, seems to be gaining acceptance among environmentalists, who believe that the step could, probably, pave the way towards cooperation for sustainable development between India and Pakistan besides preserving the fragile ecology of the region that is under serious threat due to the heavy deployment of troops.

The matter was also taken up last month by a group of Indian and Pakistani mountaineers, who met in the Swiss Alps to highlight the plight of Siachen and other threatened cross-border ecologically-sensitive regions. Earlier in June, the issue was raised in Dhaka during a workshop on environment, organised by the World Conservation Union and the World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA). A statement issued at the conclusion of the Dhaka meeting said: "As part of the normalisation process and confidence-building measures, the Governments of India and Pakistan are urged to establish a Siachen Peace Park to protect and restore the spectacular landscapes which are home to many endangered species including the snow-leopard."

The proposal was mooted a few years ago by the well-known environmentalist, Aamir Ali, member of the WCPA, along with Harish Kapadia and Mandip Soin. The Siachen glacier, which is the world's highest battlefield, is rich in biodiversity being home to snow leopards, brown bears and ibex that, according to ecologists, are now under severe threat from the military presence. Troop movement around strategic locations and firing practice as well as the garbage generated from the presence of troops disturbs wildlife, affecting their breeding and spreading diseases. A report from the World Wide Fund for Nature issued in 1997 suggested that 30 per cent of Kashmir's endemic flora was threatened and some species could have become extinct.

Environmental organisations like the WWF, the Himalayan Environmental Trust, the Himalayan Club, the World Conservation Union and the WCPA have now decided to call upon the Indian and Pakistani Governments to reduce the military presence in the region and jointly begin the task of regenerating its biodiversity by setting up the peace park. A transfrontier park can serve as the buffer between two countries with a firm guarantee that neither will sneak in, environmentalists feel.

The concept of peace parks — protected areas straddling the boundaries of neighbouring and sometimes hostile States — is not new. It is an ambitious notion, and one that is now undergoing a renaissance with the number of new parks in the world going up to 169 between 1988 and 2001. The latest being set up three years ago between South Africa and Botswana, as the first officially designated `transfrontier' park. The first peace park was established 70 years ago — Waterton glacier international park — between the United States and Canada, according to Terra Green, webmagazine of The Energy and Research Institute (TERI).

However, the WCPA acknowledges that plans for peace parks should not be too ambitious. In a report, the organisation states that the "creation of protected area will not in itself resolve a dispute but protected areas can be part of the resolution settlement. No direct settlement should be expected from the initiative but could help to erode some of the mistrust and misinformation that five decades of hostility have helped to spread in the minds of ordinary Indians and Pakistanis".

The 77 km-long and 3 km-wide Siachen glacier — a bone of contention between India and Pakistan — has been a battleground for several decades now. The war is costing India $1 million a day and a little less to Pakistan. Of the 3,500 soldiers dead and 10,000 injured on the glacier so far, only three per cent are reported to have died of bullets while the rest succumbed to harsh weather conditions.

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