{"id":43280,"date":"2014-08-11T19:53:35","date_gmt":"2014-08-11T14:53:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/?p=43280"},"modified":"2014-08-11T19:53:35","modified_gmt":"2014-08-11T14:53:35","slug":"pakistans-mountain-farmers-revive-upper-indus-basin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/tg\/2014\/08\/11\/pakistans-mountain-farmers-revive-upper-indus-basin\/","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan\u2019s mountain farmers revive the upper Indus basin \u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ayubia-pakistan\"<\/a><\/p>\n

By Saleem Sheikh<\/p>\n

It has been a renewal of life and livelihood for Muhammad Naeem, a vegetable grower in north Pakistan\u2019s Namli Mera village who was about to give it all up and move to the city after shrinking water supply and pollution had made farming unviable. But the mountain stream has revived, the water quality improved and he is able to irrigate his four-acre plot with ease thanks to an innovative watershed management programme that has saved many farmers like him.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cWater supply from a centuries old natural sparkling spring in our area was shrinking, getting turbid and polluted because of rising deforestation in our mountain village. I realised that farming was no more viable and was thinking of abandoning it to migrate to Islamabad with my family in search of labour,\u201d recalled Naeem.<\/p>\n

Namli Mera, one of the villages located around the\u00a0Ayubia National Park<\/a>, about 80 km from Islamabad, was once popular amongst tourists for its gushing, cold and sparkling waters of natural springs. But many dried up over the years.<\/p>\n

Spread over \u200b\u200b33 square kilometres, the park in the western Himalayas is surrounded by 12 villages and the three towns of Nathiagali, Ayubia and Khanspur in\u00a0Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province<\/a>. The area is known for its \u200b\u200bconiferous trees and is home to over 750 species of plants \u2013 81 of them with medicinal value \u2013 and 203 bird, 31 mammal and three amphibian species.<\/p>\n

The impact of climate change on water availability, rainfall and snowfall are evident. But things are looking up for people like Naeem, who have given up their plans to leave their ancestral homes to move to nearby cities like Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Abbottabad after a\u00a0Climate-Resilient Watershed Management Programme<\/a>,\u00a0launched in 2008 by the\u00a0World Wide Fund for Nature-Pakistan (WWF-P)<\/a>\u00a0and funded by the Coca Cola Foundation, came into effect.<\/p>\n

CLICK FOR COMPLETE ARTICLE<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Saleem Sheikh It has been a renewal of life and livelihood for Muhammad Naeem, a vegetable grower in north Pakistan\u2019s Namli Mera village who was about to give it all up and move to the city after shrinking water supply and pollution had made farming unviable. But the mountain stream has revived, the water …<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43281,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4682],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured"],"better_featured_image":{"id":43281,"alt_text":"","caption":"","description":"","media_type":"image","media_details":{"width":3088,"height":2056,"file":"2014\/08\/Ayubia-pakistan.jpg","sizes":{"thumbnail":{"file":"Ayubia-pakistan-260x250.jpg","width":260,"height":250,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pamirtimes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Ayubia-pakistan.jpg?resize=260%2C250&ssl=1"},"medium":{"file":"Ayubia-pakistan-450x299.jpg","width":450,"height":299,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pamirtimes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Ayubia-pakistan.jpg?fit=450%2C299&ssl=1"},"large":{"file":"Ayubia-pakistan-600x399.jpg","width":600,"height":399,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pamirtimes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Ayubia-pakistan.jpg?fit=600%2C399&ssl=1"},"150x150":{"file":"Ayubia-pakistan-150x150.jpg","width":150,"height":150,"source_url":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Ayubia-pakistan-150x150.jpg"},"120x85":{"file":"Ayubia-pakistan-120x85.jpg","width":120,"height":85,"source_url":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Ayubia-pakistan-120x85.jpg"},"415x260":{"file":"Ayubia-pakistan-415x260.jpg","width":415,"height":260,"source_url":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Ayubia-pakistan-415x260.jpg"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":5.6,"credit":"","camera":"Canon EOS 450D","caption":"","created_timestamp":1365010161,"copyright":"","focal_length":"18","iso":"400","shutter_speed":"0.0166666666667","title":""}},"post":43280,"source_url":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Ayubia-pakistan.jpg"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pamirtimes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Ayubia-pakistan.jpg?fit=3088%2C2056&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/tg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/tg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/tg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/tg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/tg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43280"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/tg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43282,"href":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/tg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43280\/revisions\/43282"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/tg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/tg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/tg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/tg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}