Champa BOOKS

20/10/2024

IN THE SERVICE OF THE SUBLIME
SERVING UP THE RIDICULOUS

THE SUBLIME… Let us plant forests of mangroves that create communities of trees, which contribute to the fight against global warming! Bravo! I raise my hands in praise, palms touching and my entire being smiling. Let us keep placing seedlings where they have specialised and evolved to function. Where mangroves can flourish in their specific intertidal salt water ecosystem.

But, let me postulate…

THE HYPOTHETICAL… What if with ridiculous intent and reason, someone brought a Juniper, a specialised coniferous tree that grows on mountains, and planted it on the beach in Karachi. Say Sea View Beach, watered only by tides of oceans, salt water and salt laden spray.

Or, let me state…

THE RIDICULOUS… As has actually happened recently… With serious intent good people planted many Rizophora Muronocata mangrove saplings on land above the reach of salt water, sea shore, estuary or tides… Obligate halophytes, mangrove trees, planted in park planter beds, surrounded by green lawn of grass, watered by sweet water from tankers.

I hold my head in both hands…

THE SUBLIME TO THE SAD, or the…

A dichotomy ??? Between the perceived and the real. Between the need to show immediate impact and ignoring the botanical needs of declared impact…

Mangroves are intertidal trees. All the kinds of forests, trees, shrubs, micro plants, fungi, mycelium have evolved to become a part of and thrive in specific ecosystems. Adaption to ecosystem change happens in the long timeframe of nature, not in the shortsighted timeline or bottom line of mans business enterprises…

One has to ask…
What is happening to our ability to question? Do we not see, do we not contemplate? Which favours given to us will we deny? Let us walk gently on this Earth. Let us act as custodians and express appreciation for this wonderful place this heaven on earth, we still exist in.

I ask again, gently with some fatigue for Nature Reserves…

Tariq Alexander Qaiser
20 October 2024

For the full article please read:
DAWN - Aurora Magazine
ISSUE - September to October 2024,
PAGES - 28 & 29

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DBU5ltdCzBi/?igsh=NmVrbXllYzFsN25i

22/09/2024

THE DANCE OF THE SURMAI

I must be getting old. Stories starting with ‘in my time…’ have appeared in my conversation. But since I was (recently 🤓) a younger man, a lot has disappeared. Especially in the natural ecosystems that I have had the privilege to have explored. Heartbreak is never a state to aspire towards. But…

These Surmai jumping did exist in massive numbers. I have seen them all the way from Karachi to Churna. The parts of the footage not seen in this clip, describe how at sunset the lateral light of the low sun would reflect off flanks of so many of these fish. Silver darts of sunlight thrown towards us as arrows, by living, fluorescing projectiles darting up in joy at the sky, breaking through an almost metallic shimmering silvery gold surface of darkening water. It was poetic - I write describing the memory while seeing the moving image etched in my minds eye. I am thankful to have lived it and do miss it.

In the early 1990’s the schools of Mackerel, the Surmai suddenly disappeared. They didn’t just migrate out of Pakistan. There was an influx of foreign fishing trawlers that had acquired liscence to fish in Pakistan’s territorial waters. Over just one season to the next, entire schools of fish including the Surmai were decimated. We were left with emptying seas and destroyed flattened reefs.

The dance of the Surmai is more than a nostalgic memory. It is a reminder that our responsibility is towards our home country, our communities and the natural ecosystems we are blessed with. Short term gain for the few is a problem for sustainability.

Happy though that the amazing young people at CAP asked me that question. ‘Tell us about the Dance of the Surmai.’

Tariq Alexander Qaiser
22 September 2024

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/FQAJVJUkhnXkDqX9/?mibextid=WC7FNe

21/07/2024

Out of the mangrove swamp temporarily…
But the water birds visit…
Fabulous happenstance…
Feeling 🙏🏽🤓

30/10/2023

SERENITY
COURAGE
WISDOM
A prayer for all times.
And an image of serenity
that can be regenerated…

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, & the wisdom to know the difference.
By: Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr

In times when there is so much that needs to change globally, it is perhaps of worth to contemplate and act upon this… and remember the value of PERSEVERANCE and PERSISTENCE.

I thank my elders for this…

Tariq Alexander Qaiser
29 October 2023

17/09/2023

REPLANTING OUR DELTA

There is no doubt that a tremendous effort is being undertaken to replant mangroves within our delta.

But the picture shown on the cover of this article worries me… A LOT.

https://www.arabnews.com/node/2357126/pakistan

Please do study it and ask about it to those knowledgeable about mangrove ecosystems.

Renumeration from Carbon Credits have catalysed this current activity. It is a good thing… with a caveat.

Plantation with CORRECT methodology at APPROPRIATE intertidal locations for mangroves needs to be undertaken as the first step. The plantations then have to be NURTURED & MONITORED. Saplings that die have to be REPLACED, and the replantation zones have to be PROTECTED.

Hopefully all of these steps are included in the projects and their proposals… especially the nurturing & protection of the mangrove plantations. We need to raise questions if they are not, or if the follow up is weak…

On more thought…
a question perhaps…

Why are the islands of karachi not included in this replanting effort? The large trees ARE still BEING CUT on Karachi’s islands and Bundal Island…

LET US REPLANT & RESTORE KARACHI’s ISLANDS TOO…
There are carbon credits to be gained here as well …
&
ACCOLADES both
INTERNATIONAL & LOCAL
are there to be earned for creating nature reserves next to Karachi …

Tariq Alexander Qaiser
17 September 2023

SUJAWAL, SINDH: Cash-starved Pakistan raised its carbon trading sales target this month to $12 billion by launching a new mangrove plantation project at the Indus Delta in the country’s southern Sindh province that has till date sold $40 million worth of carbon credits, officials confirmed. Known ...

03/09/2023

https://youtu.be/rXWh3wPX6Os?feature=shared

Todays update from BUNDAL ISLAND
- The scent or the mangrove bloom is in full strength!
- The cutting is ONGOING blatantly
- I was almost able to cross the Island yesterday… A lot of adventures!

Tariq Alexander Qaiser
3 September 2023

Reflections from the center of Bundal Island at high tide

04/12/2022

Keynote talk at the 4th ADAB Festival- Frere Hall Karachi - Pakistan

24/07/2022

I LOVE …Especially when he or she is clean…This was once a desert and the intertidal Edge of Delta. It has a memory and still talks of those times. ...

05/09/2021

22/06/2021