A community-based appraisal of the anthropogenic pressures on Margallah HillsNational Park [Pakistan]
2005
Ahmad, S.U.,Inst. of Ecologics and Bioinformatics, Rawalpindi (Pakistan))Akhtar, A
This paper discusses the anthropogenic pressures on Margallah Hills NationalPark (MHNP), in the light of the information collected from the communities, in asurvey using questionnaires and semi-structured interviews exercising stratifiedrandom-sampling, in ten villages. Forest fires often erupt in summer at variousspots, most of which are malicious; the frequency of forest fires ranged from 1 to19 in three years in the villages studied. Loss of biodiversity has also enhancedin the last decade, and the sighting frequency of many important animals, likegrey goral, barking deer, jackal and hare, has decreased and many importantspecies of medicinal plants are becoming sparse. As the communities mostly rely onnatural resources, the use of fuelwood, medicinal plants, forest products likefruits, resin and cones, etc., is common. Rural economy is based mainly onlivestock, agriculture, fuelwood, and the low paying labour in the urban areasnearby. The paper also discusses pollution, tourism, recreation and adventure andmanagerial aspects of the Park.
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