In the face of worsening environmental problems, several of the principal environment organizations—the United Nations Environment Programme, the World Wide Fund for Nature, and IUCN- The World Conservation Union—proposed and then funded the development of a global strategy for the rational development and conservation of natural resources. Called the World Conservation Strategy: Living Resource Conservation for Sustainable Development (WCS), it was launched in 1980. As the logical follow-up to this strategy, and with the help of IUCN, in due course many countries began preparation of national conservation strategies.

In Pakistan, the first Government organization to receive the WCS was the National Council for the Conservation of Wild life in what was then the Ministry of Food, Agriculture, and Cooperatives in 1983. The Council's head, the Inspector General of Forests, asked IUCN to help in the preparation of a National Conservation Strategy (NCS). Actual work started in 1987, but it took till 1992 for the final document to be approved by the Cabinet. The NCS also formed the basis for the Pakistan National Report to UNCED, the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro.

When the NCS document was completed, IUCN Pakistan at the request of the Government of Pakistan—held nine workshops throughout the country to explore the potential and opportunities for implementation. Right away, it was clear that NCS implementation at the provincial level would be possible only if the provincial Government at the highest level perceived the need for pursuing such a strategy and accepted responsibility for doing so. The North West Frontier Province (NWFP) decided to take the lead and hosted the workshop on the role of provincial institutions in implementation in Peshawar on August 13, 1991. This was followed by a series of meetings with senior officials of the Government of NWFP, culminating in a briefing to the Chief Minister, NWFP, and his colleagues on November 17, 1991. Several ideas emerged during the meetings and these formed the basis for a proposal which was approved by the Chief Minister in December 1991. The Sarhad Provincial Conservation Strategy (SPCS) could now go ahead.

Initially it was thought that the SPCS would be developed by reviewing available information and filling in gaps using studies by consultants. But it soon became clear that the real virtue of strategic planning for sustainable development was in initiating a public dialogue and creating public ownership of the strategy through awareness and participation. From this emerged the resolve to undertake province-wide public consultation and to develop sub-strategies of the SPCS through involving people who had a stake in the issue. These component strategies would then be included under an overarching SPCS.

To this end a Sarhad Provincial Conservation Strategy Inception Report was compiled and released in October 1993. This formed the basis of the extensive consultation process carried out with the general public in cities and villages and with government departments, businessmen, private entrepreneurs, teachers and the NGOs.

The SPCS used a two-track approach: while consultations on the Inception Report proceeded during the two years of the Strategy’s finalization, activities such as preparation of an environmental profile, institution- strengthening, and awareness raising were implemented in parallel.

Out of this emerged the Sarhad Provincial Conservation Strategy, 1995-98, a statement of commitment by the government and people of the NWFP to move forward with an effective programme of sustainable development.

The SPCS is the principal plan for implementing the National Conservation Strategy in the NWFP. It is both a comprehensive statement of provincial aspirations for sustainable development and a commitment package containing major policy statements, law-reform initiatives, structural improvements and bold new programmes. With its strong emphasis on changing the administration’s operating style, the SPCS will open up government priority-setting to the people in an unprecedented manner.

The SPCS 1995-98 is the first generation of the strategy which, by design, is innovative, exploratory and time-specific. It will be reviewed in 1998 to coincide with the launch of the Ninth Five-Year Plan for Pakistan. By then there will be a far better under-standing of the actual efficacy of many of the SPCS processes, systems and policies. It is also likely that certain priorities will have changed, and portions of it may well have become outdated—some would have been implemented while others may be judged unviable.

In a sense then, while the SPCS 1995-98 reflects today’s priorities and is as complete as currently possible, it remains a flexible, evolving plan to achieve sustainable development in the NWFP. In this regard, the SPCS is subject to a legal requirement, set out by the proposed NWFP Environment Act, that the strategy is reviewed and rewritten every five years. This will be done by the Planning, Environment and Development Department of the Government of NWFP, in conjunction with other departments involved in the implementation of the Strategy.

The neglect and abuse of the environment over past decades has come to pose a formidable challenge, and the large number of complex problems cannot be addressed in a short period of time. This is partly because the NWFP is a resource-deficient province, and donors are unlikely to fund all that must be done. The SPCS has, therefore, adopted a prioritized agenda for implementation, in which it concentrates initially on activities which can bring about the greatest improvements for the smallest investments.