By Menahill Rashid
FAISALABAD: UAF Vice Chancellor Prof. Dr. Anas Sarwar Qureshi said that humanity was facing an enormous challenge to secure adequate food production for the rising population, projected to reach 9.1 billion in 2050.
He was addressing a webinar titled as “Sustainable nitrogen management for ecosystem restoration” organized by University of Agriculture, Faisalabad (UAF) in collaboration with United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), International Nitrogen Initiative (INI), South Asia Nitrogen Hub, Global Partnership on Nutrient Management (GPNM) and Ministry of Climate Change, Govt of Pakistan. About 888 participants joined this webinar from around the globe.
Mr. Anas praised the government’s 10 billion Tree Tsunami project and ecosystem restoration fund which was being appreciated by the global community.
The World Environment Day celebration are actually our promise to the planet earth and every individual need to act accordingly and can play his/her role in ecosystem restoration, he further added. Considering the urgency of tackling the nitrogen pollution, he added that we need to see a major upscaling of efforts from all walks of life, and across all sectors government, academia, policy makers, scientists, private sectors and society.
He said that in addition to water shortage, lack of agricultural inputs, especially nitrogen fertilizer, soil salinization, and poor irrigation practices are major factors for low crop yields.
Furthermore, climate change also is posed to affect agricultural production adversely. Keeping in climate changes and water scarcity in view, we have to adopt the modern agriculture practices. There is a need for stepped up efforts for fighting the climate changes, environmental pollution and others.
Joyce Msuya, Deputy Executive Director (UNEP)emphasized that nitrogen pollution is a big challenge as it affects ecosystems in many ways like biodiversity loss, polluting fresh water resources and marine ecosystems, climate change and stratospheric ozone depletion. She also introduced the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration on the eve of World Environment Day. The decade calls for the protection and revival of ecosystems all around the world with focus on resetting our relation with nature.
