I think recently we’ve been focussing a lot on the negative things going on in the country. It is also important to keep an eye out for any good things that are taking place so that they may lighten our mood and give us some hope for the future. One of these, the credit for which goes to City District Government Karachi, is Bagh Ibn-e-Qasim which is spread over 130 acres of land. By the way just across the road from this is another huge park spread over an area of 47 acres called Clifton Beach Park. Some might argue that two parks being across the road from one another might be an overkill considering the general lack of greenery in the city, but I think they can easily be treated as one huge park. I have seen both (from the outside) and they are both beautiful. Well done, CGDK!
Continue reading ‘Bagh Ibn-e-Qasim: The country’s largest park’
It was the first time in history that an entire nature series was filmed with high-definition technology. The resulting images were some of the most fascinating that have ever been showed on television and in fact, some were the first of their type ever broadcasted (with respect to their content). That is one reason it took nearly four years for the entire 11- episode series of Planet Earth to be filmed.
One part of the documentary was dedicated to the Karakoram range and the longest mountain-glacier in the world, the Baltoro, found in Baltistan. However, even amongst the mighty mountains, Planet Earth’s main mission was not to film the mountains themselves but to capture images of an animal that has never been intimately filmed in the wild: The snow leopard. It was a task that took nearly a year from start to finish but in the end the effort paid off. Here is a brief pictorial overview of the Baltoro and the snow leopard, followed by clips of Planet Earth on Pakistan (although they do not do justice to HD or the programs’ producers, the internet still has its limitations):
Continue reading ‘Extraordinary Pakistan: the Baltoro Mountain-Glacier & the Snow Leopard’
Guest post by Saad K.
The start of spring marks the end of the hunting season in Pakistan. It also marks the end of the stay of some of nature’s guests that fly back to their homeland having fulfilled their annual migration from the winter cold of the fall-away Soviet states to the relative warmth of Balouchistan and Sindh particularly the Chaghi District and the Sanghar/Sukkur area. Of course, some leave heavily depleted in numbers having been hunted vigorously by the Sheikhs of various Middle Eastern countries such as the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar. One of the migratory birds that suffers the most in Pakistan is the houbara bustard that is currently on the endangered species list.
Continue reading ‘Of the rich Sheikhs and the poor bird’
