NUML SDGs Marathon ( SDG 14; Life below Water)

NUML SDG’S MARATHON: SDG 14 (LIFE BELOW WATER)

BLOG BY

EISHA JAWAD

RUQAYYA TUL UROOJ

Supervised by: Dr. Athar Rashid 

BS-4 GPP

(Public Administration and Governance)

Introduction:

Sustainable Development Goal 14 is about "Life below water" and is one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations in 2015. SDG 14 targets seek to prevent and reduce marine pollution; further the sustainable management and protection of marine and coastal ecosystems; address the impacts of ocean acidification; regulate harvesting and end overfishing, illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, and destructive fishing practicing, conserve coastal and marine areas; increase the economic benefits to small developing States and least developed countries from the sustainable use of marine resources; and strengthen the means of implementation, including increasing scientific knowledge, the transfer of marine technology and implementation of international law as reflected in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

 PROGRESS MADE BY PAKISTAN

Pakistan affirmed its commitment to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development by adopting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as its own national development agenda through a unanimous National Assembly Resolution in 2016. Since then, the country has made considerable progress by mainstreaming these goals in national policies and strategies, including the Five-Year Plan, provincial growth strategies, and Pakistan’s long-term development perspective. In 2018, the newly elected Government designed and approved a National SDGs Framework that envisages a national vision to prioritize and localize SDGs.

The country is making all possible efforts to establish institutional mechanisms in line with the 2030 Agenda. The newly elected government has a firm stance on strengthening institutions, ensuring meritocracy, and introducing transparency at all levels. This is considered essential for translating our political vision into reality through efficient and effective management of available resources and improving the quality of service delivery. With the establishment of federal and provincial SDG units, Pakistan has instituted monitoring and evaluation processes that are critical for supporting the SDGs’ implementation, horizontal and vertical coordination, and strengthened collaborations with development partners, civil society organizations, think tanks, and academia, and the private sector. To ensure an enabling institutional environment, Parliamentary Taskforces are operating in national and provincial assemblies, closely overseeing progress on the SDGs. All such efforts are expected to accelerate the pace of Pakistan’s progress on the SDGs.

 CAMPUS DRIVE:

 In order to raise awareness, we interacted with students of various departments. We asked them about their knowledge of marine pollution and ways to prevent it. Most of the students know about the SDGs but don’t have much knowledge, particularly about SDG 14. We enlightened them about the topic and asked them to play a positive role in this important issue. We visited 6 departments in total and approached 35 to 40 students.

• Ø  Department of Mathematics
• Ø  Department of English
• Ø  Department of Management Sciences
• Ø  Department of Psychology
• Ø  Department of Mass communication
• Ø  Department of International Relations

CONDUCTED A WEBINAR:

On 24/2/22 we conducted a webinar on conservation and sustainable use of oceans/marine resources, where students of all fields joined in. We discussed various topics including excessive fishing and its harmful effects, ghost gears and nets destroying marine habitats, industrial waste and its drastic effects on marine life, and our role in the prevention, conservation, and restoration of marine life. It was a great learning experience for everyone.

RESULTS:

Most of the students were unaware of the particular SDGS our campus drive and the webinar gave them insight and the severity of the issue. The very main and common misconception that most the people have is that just because they don’t live near a water body, and don’t go fishing they have no active role in negatively affecting marine life, but the ground reality is that every single individual one way or another affects the marine life, be it through the waste we produce, our ways of its disposal and our excessive usage of plastic and excessive consumption of seafood.

 

Most of them appreciated the effort and acknowledged our steps towards the betterment ad implementation of SDGs in Pakistan. They also showed hope to play their positive individual role toward the solutions.

Awareness:

About our assigned goal i.e., Life Below Water, we tried to explain to them the effect human life has on marine life and how it suffers due to our actions. We tried to promote some solutions that are applicable on an individual level.

Most of the marine pollution is the result of excessive plastic usage and garbage dumping in the ocean. Most of the garbage that washes up on the coasts contains plastic bottles, disposable utensils, and garbage bags. This kind of garbage not only increases the ocean toxicity, but also affects the productivity and biodiversity of the marine life and claims the life of many species in the ocean because most of the ocean species mistake the plastic garbage for their food, they either eat it or get entangled in it, and in both cases, it costs them their lives

There isn’t much a person can do when it comes to formulating policies and implementing laws to conserve marine resources but what we can do and that we as a team have always promoted is an individual effort and individual change and keeping that approach in mind, we promoted the following minimal yet very effective ways to reduce the marine pollution in both our campus drive and in our webinar.

Reduce the excessive usage of plastic

              i.            Instead of buying a plastic water bottle every time you go out of the house, try and buy a reusable bottle, for instance, a glass bottle, that you fill and carry around with you.

            ii.            While going to shopping malls and shops bring your own fabric bag so you don’t have to take a plastic bag from the said shop.

          iii.            While doing grocery or vegetable shopping, bring your own bag or basket and avoid taking the plastic bag from the shop

          iv.            Avoid purchasing materials and items that have unnecessary plastic wrapping around them.

            v.            Use glass or other containers in your houses for storage instead of plastic ones.

          vi.            If you have bought any plastic container or item, instead of throwing it away after it has served its purpose try to recycle it for some other thing, for instance, arts and crafts, plantation, etc.

Skills we learned

1.      First and foremost, we learned how to design posters for webinars, we never really had any previous experience with such activity.

2.      We learned to arrange, host a webinar, and deal with any queries on our own for the very first time.

3.      We built enough confidence to walk up to people and initiate conversations and create awareness.

4.      As we promoted sustainability and how important it is to make such eco-friendly choices, it has in a very positive way affected our perspective on what changes we can bring within ourselves to make more sustainable choices in life no matter how minor they are.