The activities of environmental
awareness have entirely different meanings in a least developed country like
Pakistan. Here most of such activities are conducted just as a formality where
instead of focusing over the dissemination of information simply fun gala sort
of things are mainly done just to attract the visitors. Entry in such events is
not free of cost and a fee is charged to each visitor which itself shows how
would be the response of public of a poor country to such premium activities.
WWF Pakistan Nature Carnival 2013 a poor show
The same episode was recently
been repeated by WWF Pakistan in its Nature Carnival 2013 in Karachi that was
conducted with the sponsorship of Toyota Motors. Several schools of the city were
invited to display their environment models but most of the event revolved
around an unaesthetic stage where cacophonic live music was performed. Most of
the visitors kept asking each other during the Carnival is it not the noise
pollution. The music was hugely loud and there was no synchronization in sound
and music. Most of the singers were copycats and sang the songs of other
singers in a premium event.
Public had to pay for its awareness raising
The Carnival was meant to raise
the awareness level of public, but no one was allowed to enter the premises of
the event without a ticket of Rs50 (half dollar). In a poor country like
Pakistan charging that much amount to the seekers of environmental awareness is
itself an injustice. WWF Pakistan also promised various activities in the event
as showed at its ticket but 30% of these activities were entirely missing while
rest of things was also done in the barest way.
Lack of voluntarism was conspicuous
Lack of voluntarism was evident
from the volunteers of the event. They were doing work as if they are purely
paid workers. Their attitude towards the participants was not good. The event
was totally directionless during the whole day. Visitors who paid Rs50 for their
entry were trying to get maximum benefits but there were a few brochures on
environment at few stalls otherwise rest were displaying boring models about
various types of pollution and green issues. Most of the schools have been
displaying these models for the previous two decades in same type of events
organized in the past. They keep their models safely and whenever such events
are organized they clear the dust from the models and display them again. It
means creativity and innovation was entirely missing from the event.
Commercialism dominated the mood of event
Another sad side of this event
was its commercial aspect. Most of the corporate stalls were sold in Rs0.5
million each ($5000) but they had nothing to offer to public, nor did they have
any green products to display at their stall. In short they don’t have anything
to impress people that they are green or going green in their business
activities. Toyota did introduce a green car internationally but that was also
not prominent in the event. It shows how much interest one of the largest motor
brand showed to participate in the event where it just displayed its latest
model car of 2013.
Other Pak cities have also to suffer
WWF Pakistan plans to hold the
same event in other big cities of Pakistan. It means it will be raising more
funds through showing unappealing and boring performances that fail to raise
the awareness level of public in the past. When journalists asked few visitors
what did they learn in the event they simply said they learnt how to dance in
Gangnam style and nothing else. This noisy song was the theme song of the event
which itself carry a lot of noise pollution.
Conclusion
In countries like Pakistan that
hugely lack public awareness on environment there is pressing need to conduct
meaningful activities without any commercial motive. Here people who are
already least interested in environment will not pay to get their awareness
level raised. Therefore, purely voluntary activities with the element of
seriousness are must to sensitize people on environmental issues. For this
purpose all stakeholders have to join hands and reject such elements who simply
want to exploit such opportunities to fill their own kitty.
