THE heated debate in the National Assembly over the cutting of a few thousand paper mulberry trees in Islamabad was a pleasant surprise. The concern expressed by members across the political divide, if genuine, indicated that parliament may finally be turning its attention to substantive public interest issues. This approach should be broadened into a national conversation on the environmental degradation being witnessed in the ecological chain across the country.
Pakistan stands at the front lines of the global climate crisis. Glaciers are retreating, floods are becoming deadlier, water is growing scarcer, and weather patterns are losing their reliability for the Indus basin. Governments respond with reports, task forces and foreign-funded projects, yet disasters persist — with ever-increasing intensity. We ignore that the land that is now Pakistan once possessed a functioning climate civilisation of its own.
For instance, for over 2,000 years, societies in Gilgit-Baltistan, particularly Baltistan, Gilgit and Chilas, survived in one of the world’s harshest environments with remarkable stability. Long before the arrival of Buddhism and later Islam, the region was shaped by an indigenous belief system known as Bön. It was more than a religion; it was a comprehensive environmental philosophy. Nature was not treated as dead matter but as morally alive. Mountains, glaciers, rivers, forests and wildlife were all understood as participants in a shared living world that deserved to be treated with respect. Thus they were protected as a collective community responsibility.
This worldview created what modern policy now calls ‘environmental governance’. Upper watersheds were sacred and protected. Glacier zones were restricted. Forests were regulated. Grazing followed strict seasonal rules. Hunting was controlled. These standards were enforced collectively. Violating nature meant violating community norms.
The land that is now Pakistan once possessed a functioning climate civilisation of its own.
The heart of this system lay in seasonal festivals that structured life in the mountains. Even today, Baltistan celebrates May Fang on Dec 21, marking the winter peak and the return of light, and Nauroz, the spring festival of renewal. But these went beyond celebrations. They were regulatory events. May Fang reinforced survival discipline during the dangerous winter period. Nauroz reset agricultural schedules, irrigation systems, social contracts and land use. Other seasonal rituals controlled the opening of pastures, the protection of glaciers during peak melt, the storage of harvests and preparation for famine.
The cultural ethos was so strong that locals who migrated to other parts of the world have continued to celebrate these events. When I was a child, Nauroz was celebrated with special dishes and there were boiled, coloured eggs alongside greenery on a plate. We continue this ritual even today. In effect, society moved in rhythm with climate and ecology.
When Buddhism arrived and later Islam, this environmental civilisation was not destroyed. It was ethically transformed. Sacred mountains became signs of divine creation. Conservation became a moral duty. Festivals became moments of gratitude and prayer. Islam, in particular, reinforced environmental discipline with extraordinary clarity. The Quran warns humanity not to “transgress the balance” of nature and declares human beings as stewards of creation. The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) forbade waste of water even in the presence of a flowing river and declared that planting a tree was an act of charity. In the mountains, these principles merged naturally with existing ecological customs.
This fusion produced centuries of environmental stability in a region where survival itself is a constant struggle. Then, in the past 60 years, modern development dismantled this system. Roads, dams, concrete, mining and unregulated construction erased sacred geography. Seasonal rules collapsed under market pressures. Community authority weakened as centralised administration took over. Nature lost its moral meaning and became raw material. Towns are turning into sprawling katchi abadis spewing toxic gutter water that pollutes the clean sparkling streams.
The results are before us. Glaciers are melting faster. Floods are more violent. Springs are drying up. Food security is fragile. Conflicts over water and land are rising — not in this region alone; the entire country is suffering due to the criminal neglect of Pakistan’s mountainous north. The tragedy is that Pakistan is now searching for climate solutions in foreign policy templates while ignoring a climate model that already existed within its own borders.
GB offers more than cultural nostalgia. It offers a framework of governance that modern policy desperately needs. The first lesson is that climate resilience cannot survive on technical planning alone. It requires cultural obedience. People protect what they believe in. Environmental law becomes powerful only when it is anchored in social values and moral conviction enforced by the community — not by green civil servants from other parts of the region in unplanned new district administrative units who, blind to local conditions, have only added more confusion to the chaotic administrative nightmare of small wasteful new revenue districts.
Second, ecological management must be seasonal, not continuous. Ancient societies understood that nature functions in cycles. Modern policy treats resources as permanently available. That illusion is collapsing.
Third, community institutions are not obstacles to development; they are its foundation. No climate policy will succeed if it bypasses the cultural intelligence of the people who live with the land.
Pakistan’s future climate policy must, therefore, undergo a fundamental shift. Environmental governance should be localised, culturally grounded and ethically reinforced. Protected climate zones must replace unregulated construction in watersheds and glacier buffers. Valley-level councils should regulate grazing, forestry and water according to seasonal cycles. Indigenous festivals should be formally integrated into disaster planning, water management and food security strategies. Education must restore the moral relationship between society and nature.
The mountains of Gilgit-Baltistan are not backward remnants of a forgotten past. They are a library of climate knowledge written over centuries of living with glaciers, avalanches, droughts and floods. Pakistan can either continue importing climate policy from abroad or learn from its own civilisation. The current policies are a recipe for disaster and portend an alarming future for our rivers, our farms, cities and Pakistan itself.
The writer, a former IGP Sindh, belongs to Gilgit-Baltistan.
Published in Dawn, January 24th, 2026
