- In September, Pakistan declared its third marine protected area, around Miani Hor Lagoon on the country’s central coast.
- The biodiversity-rich lagoon hosts a lush mangrove forest, numerous bird species and threatened marine mammals.
- Conservationists welcomed the new marine protected area as a baby step toward meeting the country’s so-called 30×30 commitment to protect 30% of its land and sea by 2030. However, the new addition puts Pakistan’s total protected marine area at just 0.23% of its marine and coastal jurisdiction.
- The scope of protections for the new protected area remains to be determined. Local people expressed concern that restrictions could upend the livelihoods of the local community, which depends on the lagoon and mangroves and already lacks basic necessities.
KARACHI — On Sept. 2, the government of Balochistan province in Pakistan declared the country’s third marine protected area, around Miani Hor Lagoon on the country’s central coast. The biodiversity-rich lagoon hosts a lush mangrove forest, numerous bird species and threatened marine mammals.
With the declaration of the Miani Hor Marine Protected Area (MPA), Pakistan takes another step toward achieving Target 3 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Diversity Framework, to protect 30% of its land and sea by 2030, also known as the 30×30 initiative. It’s a very small step, however: With the addition of the not-quite 43-square-kilometer (16.5-square-mile) Miani Hor MPA, Pakistan’s total protected marine area measures 542 km2 (209 mi2), or just 0.23% of the 240,000 km2 (92,660 mi2) of marine and coastal area under the country’s jurisdiction.
Pakistan trails its neighbors, Bangladesh at 8% and even India at 0.3%, although none of these countries’ MPAs are considered well protected. And it appears on track to miss the 30×30 target, just like it missed the old Aichi Target 11, which aimed to protect 10% of land and sea by 2020. In line with the country’s track record, enacting management plans for its MPAs also lags. For instance, it took Pakistan eight years to come up with the management plan for its first MPA, declared in 2017 around Astola Island; the second, the Churna Island MPA declared in September 2024, still has no management plan in sight.
Nevertheless, conservationists welcomed the new MPA.
“The declaration of Miani Hor as Pakistan’s third, and first lagoon-type marine protected area, is a landmark step in securing one of the country’s last intact lagoon-mangrove systems,” Rab Nawaz, senior director of biodiversity programs at WWF-Pakistan, told Mongabay by phone. “Its protection will help regulate fishing pressure, prevent destructive development, and maintain the tidal flows that keep the lagoon alive. Unlike the offshore MPAs of Astola and Churna, Miani Hor represents a coastal, community-dependent ecosystem. Its success will depend on inclusive governance and strong enforcement. This designation strengthens Pakistan’s commitments under SDG 14 and the Global 30×30 Biodiversity Framework.”
Miani Hor Lagoon
Located around 90 km (56 mi) northwest of the megacity of Karachi, Miani Hor is Pakistan’s largest lagoon, at 60 km long by 5 km wide (37 by 3 mi). It forms at the outlet of two important rain-based rivers, the Porali and the Winder, in Lasbela district, Balochistan province.
“Miani Hor is a significant biodiversity hotspot which not only hosts a number of species of mammals, but also birds,” Muhammad Moazzam Khan, a technical adviser at WWF-Pakistan, told Mongabay. “No other site in Pakistan has been home to as large a number of migratory and resident bird species as Miani Hor.”
In 2001, the lagoon was declared a Ramsar Site because of its avian diversity, which includes greater flamingos (Phoenicopterus roseus), Dalmatian pelicans (Pelecanus crispus) and great black-headed gulls (Ichthyaetus ichthyaetus). During the winter, scientists estimate 20,000 birds of various species congregate at the lagoon, and more than 55 bird species have been documented in the area, according to Altaf Hussain Narejo, a zoologist with Pakistan’s Ministry of Climate Change and Environmental Coordination.
The lagoon hosts a resident population of 60 to 80 endangered Indian Ocean humpback dolphins (Sousa plumbea). Indo-Pacific finless porpoises (Neophocaena phocaenoides), classified as vulnerable, have also been spotted in the area, but a lack of studies means there’s no exact data on their numbers. The Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force lists the lagoon as an “important marine mammal area” because of these two species; it’s also home to near-threatened Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus).
A major asset for wildlife is the lagoon’s dense mangrove forest, comprised of three mangrove species: Avicennia marina, Rhizophora mucronata and Ceriops tagal. Elsewhere in Pakistan, the latter two species are declining, including in the Indus Delta in Sindh province, which is the world’s seventh-largest mangrove forest.
Mangroves provide important habitat for aquatic and avian species. Their intricate root systems make them resilient to storms and effective at controlling coastal erosion and protecting corals, seagrasses and other seabed organisms from the adverse effects of particles washed into the sea. They’re also excellent at sequestering carbon. In 2022, the Balochistan provincial government, which looks after all three of Pakistan’s MPAs, declared Miani Hor’s mangroves a protected forest.
Threats and protections
Miani Hor’s marine mammals, birds and mangroves all face critical threats from uncontrolled hunting and cutting. An increase in vessel traffic and unsustainable fishing activities have further exacerbated the threats.
The scope of protections for the waters and mangroves of the new Miani Hor MPA remains to be determined. For one thing, it’s not entirely clear which part of the lagoon the MPA will cover as the size declared by the Balochistan Forest and Wildlife Department, around 43 km2, is much smaller than the lagoon and yet a map from the department shows the MPA covering the entire lagoon. The department is currently working on a management plan for the new MPA, which must address the needs of the local community of fishers and others who depend on the lagoon and mangroves for their livelihoods.
“Declaring the site an MPA is the first step,” Afia Salam, an independent environmentalist based in Karachi, told Mongabay. “Now lies a long journey ahead for doing a base study and scientific and social assessments to enact a management plan, deciding what kind of protections should be conferred and what ease is given to the local people.”
Determining the mangrove protections is important, since the existing protected forest status lacks teeth. However, this will be particularly tricky, according to Muhammad Shafi, a marine scientist at Lasbela University of Agriculture, Water and Marine Sciences in Balochistan and the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology in Guangzhou, China.
“The local community relies on mangrove forests since the area lacks basic amenities such as [cooking] gas. They use this wood as fuel and livelihood,” Shafi told Mongabay by phone. “In the absence of such necessities, it would be difficult to put restrictions and save these crucial trees. Thus, the protections conferred need to be critically assessed.”
Mongabay reached out to two local fishers about the new MPA. Both are vocal community members and keep up with government policies in the area, but neither was previously aware of the new MPA. Upon learning about it, they expressed concerns that its declaration could deprive people of their ability to fish, which is the only means many locals, including some of their family members, have to earn a living.
One, who asked not to be named because he’s also a government employee not authorized to speak publicly on the subject, told Mongabay by phone that his community in the town of Dam near the mouth of the lagoon had been facing multiple issues that authorities had never tried to address, including a lack of cooking gas and other basic necessities, and uncontrolled fishing by trawlers.
“Putting restrictions would ultimately bring our livelihoods to a grinding halt,” he told Mongabay.
Banner image: Local fishers at work in Miani Hor Lagoon. Image courtesy of Muhammad Moazzam Khan.
With coral-rich Churna Island now an MPA, Pakistan takes baby steps on ocean protection
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