Thata, Pakistan – At a sunny afternoon at Dando Jetty, a small fishing village in the Pakistani Delta rug, the ship is unloaded and the other will go to the Arabian sea.
The melodic voice of Sindhi’s folk singer Fouzia Soomro rises from a speaker that is played on a nearby parked ship.
About 130 km (81 miles) from the largest Pakistan, Dando Jetty, sits on the coast of Khobar Creek, one of the two survivors of the Indus River in Thatti, the Coastal District in the Sindh Eastern Province.
“There should be freshwater water in this stream, which breaks into the sea,” says Zahid Sakani for Al Jazeera as he moves into the boat to visit his ancestral village, Haji Qadir Bux Sakani, in Kharo Chan, the Thattta Branch, three hours. “Instead, it’s seawater.”
Six years ago, Sakani, 45, was once a farmer. But his land, along with the rest of the village of Haji Qadir Bux, Sakani, swallowed the sea, forcing him to migrate to Baghan, 15 km (nine miles) from Dando Jetty, and turn to the tailors for survival.
Now, Luka Kharo Chan carries an abandoned appearance – no human beings in sight, the stray dogs wander freely, and abandoned boats outweigh those who are still in the service. Sackens sometimes goes to Kharo Chan to visit his father and other ancestors’ graves.
“We have grown 200 hectares [81 hectares] From the ground and the adult cattle here, “Sachac said as he stood in the port.” But everyone was lost in the sea. “
Kharo Chan was once a prosperous area consisting of 42 “dehs” (villages), of which there are now only three. The others are flooded in the sea, forcing thousands of people to migrate to other villages or the town of Karachi.
According to the Government’s list, the population of Kharo Chan has decreased from 26,000 in 1988 to 11,403 in 2023.
Not only Kharo Chan met this fate. In the past decade, dozens of villages in the Delta Indus have disappeared, swallowed by a sea that progresses.
New channel projects
And now a new threat has emerged in an already fragile ecosystem.
As part of the so -called Green Initiative of Pakistan, the Pakistani government is asking for $ 6 billion in investment from Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Bahrain in the next three to five years for corporate agriculture, aiming at the care of 1.5 million hectares (60,000 hectares) mechanical land and land and grades. Earth.
The aim of the project is to irrigate a total of 4.8 million hectares (1.9 million hectares) of infertile land by building six channels – two each in Sindh, Balochistan and Punjab provinces. Five of these channels will be on the Indi, while the sixth will be built along the Sutlej River to irrigate the Cholistan desert in the most populous province of Pakistan.
According to the 1960 agreement, the World Bank’s water distribution agreement between India and Pakistan, Sutlei belongs primarily to India. It is one of five rivers that originate from India and fall into Indus in Pakistan. In addition to Sutlej, the water of Ravi and Beas also belong to India under the contract, while the water is Chenab and Jhelum, except for Indus Pakistan itself.
However, Sutlej brings water to Pakistan during the monsoon in India, and Cholistan relies historically on the irrigation rain.
“He will divert water from Indus to Sutlej via Chenab and then to Cholistan channel,” said Obhayo Khushuk, a former irrigation engineer. “You can’t build a new irrigation system, depending on [monsoon] flood water. “
Meanwhile, corporate agriculture has already begun in Cholistan as part of the Green Pakistan initiative, and the authorities have approved 4,121 Cusecs of land irrigation water of 0.6 million hectares (24,000 hectares) in the Cholistan desert, larger than Lahore, Pakistan’s second largest city.
Mohammad Ehsan Leghari, a representative of Sindha in the Directorate for the Indus (IRSA) Administration, a regulatory body founded in 1992 to oversee the award of the water of four Pakistan provinces, strongly opposed the move.
“From 1999 to 2024, no years went by without a lack of water in Pakistan, and Sindh and Balochistan provinces were facing up to 50 percent of water scarcity during the summer. In this situation, where will the water for the proposed channel system come from? “He asked.
In a letter to the Council of Common Interest (CCI), a constitutional body authorized to resolve questions between the Federal Government and the provinces, the Sindha Government also criticized the project by saying that IRSA did not have the right to issue a certificate of water availability. CCI is led by the Prime Minister, with the chief ministers of four provinces and three federal ministers as his members.
Sindh’s Jam Khan Shoro irrigation minister warned that Cholistan channel “would turn into Sindh infertile.” However, the Federal Minister of Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal said the complaints of the Sindha Government were “unfounded” because the new channels would not affect its share in the water.
But Hassan Abbas, an independent water adviser and the environment based in Islamabad, calls the channel the Cholistan a “non -level” project. According to him, the construction of the canal system system should be evenly and stable land, not sand dunes as those present in Cholistan.
“The water does not know how to climb the sandy Dina,” Abbas said.
Delta destruction
The powerful River Indus has been flowing for thousands of years and once has covered one of the earliest famous human civilizations that has spread to modern Pakistan, Afghanistan and India.
But as the British colonized the subcontinent two centuries ago, they also designed the river, building dams and diverting their flow. After independence in 1947, the same colonial policies followed consecutive governments, because more barracks, dams and channels led to the destruction of Delta Indus – the fifth largest in the world.
“The Delta consists of sand, sludge and water. The process of destroying Delte Indus began in 1850 when the British founded a channel network. Each channel built in Pakistan, India or China has contributed to the destruction of Delte Indus,” Abbas told Al Jazeera. Indus comes from the Tibet region.
According to the 2019 study of the American Pakistani Center for Advanced Studies in Water, Delta Indus was arranged over 13,900 square kilometers (5,367 square kilometers) in 1833, but decreased to only 1,067 square kilometers (412 square kilometers) in 2018-92 percent of the fall in the original area.
“Delta is like open hands, and the streams are his fingers falling into the sea,” Sachac said. “The space between these fingers is home to millions of people, animals and other creatures, but quickly decreases.”
As more and more countries were degraded, residents were forced to migrate upstream. But not everyone could afford to move. Those who stayed in the Delta have switched from agriculture to other professions, mostly fishing.
Sidique Katiar, 55, resident of the village of Haji Yousif Katiar near Dando Jetty, became a fisherman about 15 years ago.
“I remember there were only a few boats in our village. Now every household has boats [and] The Fisherfolk number is increasing day by day, “he told Al Jazeera.
Loss of living means
In Sanhiri Creek along the Arabian Sea, a seven -hour trip by a ship from Dando Jetty, a dozen improvised huts inhabited by the so -called “fishing workers”.
Nathi Mallah, 50 years, resident of the village of Joho in the Keta Bandar area, is one of them. She pushes a small iron bar into a jar of salt, then inserted into the sandy soil. He waits briefly before pulling the rod, quickly grabbing a little water creature locally known as “Maroarri” (razor in English), because of its long, narrow and rectangular shape, like an old -fashioned razor.
Mallah collaborates with his wife and six children to capture “Maroarri”, of which Fisherfolks says that she is exported only in China. None of Mallah’s children go to school because the family works 10-12 hours a day for a local performer, which provides them with some salt and drinking water.
Marroarri sales for 42 Pakistani hole (15 American cents) pounds, and each member of the Mallah family collects about 8-10 pounds a day, earning them enough to survive. Nathi got into the business some five years ago when their fishing profession in Joho went into losses.
Muhammad Sadique Mallah, Nathi’s husband, says that the increasing degradation of the land has pushed people to go from agriculture to fishing. “There are more fishermen at sea than it used to be in my youth,” the 55-year-old told Al Jazeera.
The 2019 World Bank’s report says that the fish catch reduced 5,000 tons a year in 1951 to less 300 tons due to the degradation of Delta Indus, forcing Pakistan to face a loss of $ 2 billion a year.
“There were times when our people would go to the sea and return in 10 days,” Nathi said. “They’re not coming back now even after a month.”
No water for crops
Allah Bux Kalmati, 60, lives in Dando Jetty where he grows tomatoes, chili, some vegetables and leaves of the betel. He says that fresh water is only available during the two months of the monsoon season.
But the Kalmati garden of Bethelist needs water every two weeks. “It’s been a month and there is no water for the plants,” he says.
According to the 1991 Water Distribution Agreement, the agreement between the four Pakistan Provinces on the division of water, at least 10 million hectares of the leg (MAF) of water must be discharged a year down the Kotri barge, the last diversion on Indus, for Deltai ecosystem at a downstream level.
In 1991, however, the International Union for the Preservation of Nature based in Switzerland recommended the release of 27maf annual-cilia that could never be realized. Furthermore, IRSA data showed that the water flow was less than 10maf for 12 of the last 25 years, as officials have diverted it elsewhere before they reached the sea.
“Ten MAF water is not enough for Delta Indus. He received water from 180 to 200 moms a year before the channel system and requires the same amount of water to survive,” said researcher Abbas as he attributed the lack of water to dams and bars.
“We have 10 percent more water than last century. But after the channel, the construction channel redirected the flow of water, resulting in freezing upstream and sedimentation in the dams, “he said.
Mahmood Nawaz Shah, president of the Sindh Breeders Association, said the Pakistan irrigation system became “old and outdated”. “Our average grain production is 130 grams per cubic meter, while in neighboring India is 390 grams,” he said.
Shah explained that Pakistan must repair the existing water network instead of spreading the irrigation system and better manage resources. “Pakistan uses 90 percent of its water in agriculture, while world use is a maximum of 75 percent,” he said, citing the International Water Management Institute.
“There are areas where ducts are available, but the water does not reach when necessary. Let’s take the Delta Indus for example. You do not have water for existing arable land. Pakistan should learn how to save water and increase your production.”
Return to Danddo Jetty, Sakani just returned after visiting his ancestral village in Kharo Chan. Before heading home, he wanted to buy fresh fish in Danda, but that day no boat came from the sea.
“There were time when we would distribute Palla [hilsa herring] Among the beggars, “he said.” But now, we can’t get fish in this place. “
In the meantime, the high tide makes Khobar Creek look like the sea, now only 7-8 km (4-5 miles) from Baghan, Sakani’s new hometown.
“The sea was 14-15 km [8-9 miles] Far when we moved here from Khara Chan, “he told Al Jazeera.” If no fresh water remains downstream, the sea will continue to erode the land and in the next 15 years Baghan will collapse. We will have to move again to second place.
“Multiple channels and obstacles to the River Indus would completely block the flow of water into the sea. It will be the last nail in the coffin of Delte Indus.”
