Climate change in Keti Bunder, Pakistan

Emily Woodhouse, a visiting researcher from Imperial College, London, spent two weeks in the small coastal community of Keti Bunder, Pakistan, talking to the locals about the impacts of climate change on their home.

Approaching the coastal community of Keti Bunder on the Indus river delta in Pakistan, it is hard to imagine that this area was once a thriving mangrove ecosystem, rich with agriculture, and boasting a busy port. The landscape now appears barren, thatched houses dotted precariously on mudflats, waterlogged and saline from the intruding sea which has swallowed whole villages in recent years. 

Impact of climate change

Safaran, an elderly local woman reminisced, "When I was a child, my family were so fortunate. We had all the natural resources…cultivated lands, livestock and fishing too. Now we can only fish, the sea is coming into our lands and the water is all around us."

Destroyed mangroves

On top of all these changes, the community of Keti Bunder is now faced with the escalating threat of storms and cyclones associated with global climate change. Reports show that the frequency and intensity of these cyclones have increased significantly in the last 30 years along the Sindh coastline of Pakistan, and this is supported by community experiences in Keti Bunder.

Another local man described the current situation, "Nowadays we are experiencing more and more cyclones and storms, each and every year and within each year, the number and intensity has increased."

Due to lack of freshwater and human deforestation, mangrove forest cover in the Indus delta has reduced from 260,000 hectares to only 80,000. But evidence suggests that mangrove forests provide the best natural protection against the effects of extreme events. The community of Keti Bunder describe how they used to move into the thick patches of mangroves when a storm threatened as they know that these could withstand the pressure. In most villages, these patches no longer exist. 

Other traditional protective measures are also breaking down. As many of the tribal groups of Keti Bunder have historically inhabited the coastal belt, they can read the environment to predict storms.

A man named Haji Hamza Jat explained, "…our forefathers always predicted the storms correctly. Now we cannot - it is beyond our knowledge and understanding." The community understandably feel that the rapid changes associated with global climate change are beyond their comprehension and control.

There is often a sense of powerlessness in the face of these devastating events. The community are using local coping strategies, like communication to warn neighbouring villages, and temporary migration, but lack of resources and alternative livelihoods limit these efforts. These methods need to be strengthened to increase the resilience of the community to environmental threats through restoration of the natural ecosystem and community development work.

WWF-Pakistan project in Keti Bunder

A new Mangrove plantation

Keti Bunder is one of the four prioritised sites of WWF-Pakistan’s Indus for All Programme which is working to address poverty and natural resource degradation in the Indus Ecoregion. The project in Keti Bunder aims to restore the degraded mangrove ecosystem and provide sustainable livelihoods for the community, helping the community and ecosystem of Keti Bunder thrive once again. Despite the difficulties and environmental threats, Keti Bunder remains the home to approximately 2000 families, connected to their ancestral lands. As local women said, "In the safe times and during storms, we will stay here. Under every condition, better or worse we will always live here."

Rina Saeed Khan, an environment journalist from Pakistan applauds the success of WWF programme in Keti Bunder in Friday Times.

In her first visit to the area, Khan described the area as an "ecological cemetery," where agriculture was destroyed and land was barren as only three out of eight varieties of mangrove had survived.

However, on a more recent visit she notes an optimistic transformation in people’s lives, brought about by WWF-Pakistan. A salt tolerant species of mangrove saplings have re-emerged in the area. Wind turbines have started generating electricity, and water tanks have been constructed to supply fresh water in villages. "We have cold storage facilities now and we can store our fish and it won’t get spoilt. We have drinking water and the wind turbines are good because they give us free electricity," she cites a villager.

Community installed wind turbine in Keti Bunder

WWF has involved community based organisations (CBOs), and religious leaders to sensitize people for adaptation efforts. Solar energy units have been installed in schools and mosques; availability of electricity has supported economic activity even after dark. Increased social gatherings in the evenings have rejuvenated cultural life. WWF is currently experimenting with growing bio-fuels like Castor and Jatropha to suit Keiti Bunder’s dry, arid conditions. Keti Bunder’s hope for a better future is reflected in happier and healthier looking people.

Sources: WWF, September 2008

           The Friday Times, July 2009