ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Biodiversity Governance and Management
in Pakistan: a Way Forward Through
the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor
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1
School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
2
Department of Education, Sukkur IBA University, Airport Road, Sukkur 65200, Pakistan
3
Green Environ Sol (Private) Limited, Islamabad 67337, Pakistan
4
Key Laboratory of Animal Physiology, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of Hebei Province,
College of Life Sciences, Hebei Normal University, Shijiazhuang 050024, China
5
Department of Zoology, Shah Abdul Latif University, Khairpur Mir’s 66111, Pakistan
Submission date: 2020-04-23
Final revision date: 2020-08-06
Acceptance date: 2020-08-11
Online publication date: 2021-02-22
Publication date: 2021-04-16
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2021;30(3):2589-2596
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ABSTRACT
Pakistan is rich in biodiversity, but for several reasons, it has not paid enough attention to
biodiversity conservation and management. Furthermore, the country’s biodiversity action plan (BAP)
for biodiversity issues is limited. This study aimed to assess the considerations in the BAP regarding
biodiversity, progress, and issues in the implementation of the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor. The
poor implementation of the BAP is the result of the failure of authorities to enforce Pakistan’s laws in
the country as well as cross-border China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. In this regard, the knowledge,
attitudes, and perspectives of the officials of different environmentally concerned departments in
Pakistan needed to be reviewed. Their opinions on Pakistan’s BAP were determined. A questionnairebased
survey of the perceptions about Pakistan’s BAP was conducted. According to the majority of
the respondents, the reasons for weak biodiversity governance were unclear targets and goals that
resulted from poor institutional coordination (72%), unclear responsibilities (56%), and insufficient
advisory guidelines (68%). This result demonstrates the country’s failure to fulfill its commitments to
the Convention on Biological Diversity by implementing the BAP. Even the country’s environmental
authorities did not agree to consider biodiversity or the implementation of BAP in the China-Pakistan
Economic Corridor route, and no biodiversity-related survey or biodiversity-related training has been
implemented. Therefore, improvement in biodiversity governance can counter some of the pressures and can enhance not only the biodiversity status of the country but also the state of the China-Pakistan
Economic Corridor.