‘Fire in Dir, KPK’, the blaring newspaper headline caught my attention.
Apparently, the cause was tourists visiting the North. They lit a campfire to cook food and left without extinguishing it.
The issue addresses climate change and social awareness. Global warming directly results from human actions and intervention. And to ignore the gravity of human transgressions, compounded by irresponsible behaviour, in the natural scheme of co-existence and mutual beneficence, is to invite nature’s wrath.
The government’s simplistic approach is planting new forests. Adopting solutions without coherent analysis of issues and human behaviour may not be enough.
The need of the hour is meaningful awareness and ecological consciousness, and not only one-sided campaigns but public involvement and ownership with a transformed mindset: a resilient population, refusing to accept assaults on its mere survival.
With a population of 220 million, the country’s irrepressible growth rate,…