Three international oil companies have begun preparations for oil exploration in Pakistan's largest park, Kirthar National Park but the provincial and the federal government have not taken a notice. Should we open wider the doors of our national parks for Premier Oil, Lasmo Oil and Shell Exploration? Should we allow these multinationals to violate the international rules of nature and wildlife conservation in our region?.

As many of us know that Pakistan has six national parks – Kirthar, Chiltan, Lal Suhanra, Ayubia, Chattar, Chitral and Khunjerab. Kirthar national park is 152 kilometers from Karachi where visitors can watch endangered Sindh ibex, urial, and chinkara from special points in the hours of morning. Stony wood and many interesting fossils have been discovered in the Kirthar mountains. Kirthar is the largest wild-life sanctuary in Sindh and Pakistan and is the first one from Pakistan that was listed with the United Nations. It is also the home to many endangered species of animals, but in its usual style, some departments are willing to cause its destruction by allowing oil exploration in the park.

The first move in this disastrous process was the conduction of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) by the Premier Oil company which is interested in doing the oil exploration. It appears that some of the local officials of Sindh Wildlife Department (SWD) are taking a stand against the illegal activity, but a concession was sold to Premier Oil by Pakistan's director general for petroleum concessions, and he has decided to bypass SWD and to let Premier, Lasmo and Shell go ahead anyway. In this regard a team of Premier Oil has entered the Kirthar National Park in December 1997 to conduct an environmental impact assessment despite being refused a permission from the Sindh Wildlife Department The team comprised Waqar Zakaria, Dr Rubina, Abrarul Hassan, Sadat Hussain, Shamim Fakhri, Haleem Siddiqui and others.

On the other hand most recently Lasmo Oil and Shell Exploration have publicly announced the discovery of a new gas field in Pakistan, the well was in the Kirthar concession in the Western Sindh region, and has confirmed substantial reserves of good quality gas. Bhit-2 was drilled to a total depth of 2067m, demonstrating that the entire sandstone section was gas bearing, with 150m of net gas pay encountered. They have also declared that further hydrocarbon indications were present below the sandstone to the total depth of the well. Lasmo believes the well is capable of flowing at initial rates in excess of 60mmscfd. The well has now been suspended, with plans moving ahead for appraisal of this and the greater Kirthar area, including deeper structures. A comprehensive seismic survey will begin this year, followed by a sustained drilling program. According to Lasmo chief operating officer John Hogan, the discovery has confirmed the presence of an excellent hydrocarbon province and has increased the attractiveness of several other prospects within the concession and the adjacent Kirthar West, awarded to the company at the beginning of the year.

If the people of Sindh have an opportunity to say what they feel is appropriate, what is permissible in the way of pollution and nature destruction, or what is permissible in the way of resource extraction then the problems of this type and depletion of resources would be reduced, both inside and outside the borders of wildlife preserves. But in fact at the government level we are quite busy in international and global issues and in the times when we can not spare moments for the downtrodden people of mountainous and deserted areas of Sindh and Balochistan how we are supposed to look into the matters of Ibex, Urial, and Chinkara. That is why we are not addressing provincial and federal government, but we the people of Sindh were expecting from World Wide Fund for Nature Conservation (WWF), OXFAM, International Union of Nature Conservation (IUCN), Political parties and Media that at least they should have performed their part of the duty, should have taken locally operating CBOs, NGOs and political activists into confidence and should have demonstrated resistance in this environmentally sensitive area.

All of us believe in democratic control of the levels of resource use, we realize that the best defense against destructive influences is to track both their activities and their effects on natural resources and we know that oil exploration, mining or other such commercial activities are not permitted in the national parks then why did not we speak? Today we are faced with the challenge of adapting our interaction with our environment to create a sustainable society. It is time to learn to live without consuming the very resource base that sustains us and that will sustain future generations.