Water in the Wilderness: Life in the Coast, Deserts, and Mountains of Pakistan

Description

With poetic imagination and new science, this book takes you to the theme of our times, water.

This book is about the beauty, continuity and fragility of a country much misunderstood and urgently seeking its core identity.

Written from a country that has revolved around water for five thousand years starting with the Indus Valley Civilization, it delves into little known places in Pakistan searching for freshwater and people’s fortitude.

In an age when water is the source of conflict, politics, disasters, Water in the Wilderness goes beyond current affairs into the corners of the Makran Coast, the greater Rajasthan Desert and the mighty Karakorams to show how it shapes landscapes, cultures, and wildlife.

Essays from bordering Iran, India, Afghanistan, Tibet, and Central Asia remind us of the deep connectedness of culture and nature following unbroken routes like those of migratory birds.

The book aims at highlighting the seamless beauty, culture, flora and fauna of Pakistan. The central message of Water in the Wilderness is that economic growth, with its zeal for modern transformation, may cause the loss of ancient and fragile fusions that form the people and nature of Pakistan – a region at the crossroads of civilization.

Beyond the central plains of the River Indus there are places in Pakistan on which little is known or written. Fragile freshwater areas of lakes, saltpans and rivers are where nature and people live as they have for centuries in unbroken continuum. While modern outlooks fail to recognize their value, these places remain unique hybrids of the East and the West that are hallmarks of Pakistan.

Using unpublished scientific findings, firsthand travel, and English language historical accounts, the book takes the general reader close to rare destinations. New scientific information commonly relegated to specialists is woven into the text to deepen insight into geography, wildlife and culture of Pakistan. Local attempts to understand and shape the future are brought into focus, through four years of extensive field trips, as entire landscapes and cultural identities are transformed. Imaginatively written text is accompanied by art quality photographs exclusively commissioned to illustrate the storyline. A special feature of the book, are essays written by scholars from neighbouring countries that highlight the remarkable similarities from across borders.

The chapters are organized around three sections: Makran Coast; Central Deserts; and the Northern Mountains of Pakistan. Each chapter tells its own story around a particular region on which little has been written or known. For example, Hingol in the Makran Coast, that contains Hinglaj, an ancient Hindu nature temple where Hindus and Muslims congregate; Lungh an ox-bow lake in the old bed of the Indus, a favoured staging site for thousands of migratory birds; and the breathtaking Deosai plateau in the northern areas, one of the largest plateaus in the world. An essay from Siberia tells the story of Katerina, an endangered species of stork, whose radio tracker shows how, if she made her safe passage to Lungh, she would not have been shot on the banks of the Indus in the tribal areas.

Reviews

“A song of life in the face of death: essential reading— stunning photography — a crucial gem. Poignantly, insidiously addictive: meticulously researched, inspiringly written.” – B.K. Zahrah Nasir, author of The Gun Tree, Oxford University Press, Pakistan

“Water in the Wilderness is a work of great insight, artistic merit, and also of great hope [for] the country’s rich, varied cultural and natural heritage.” – Thomas F. Thornton, University of Oxford

“My goodness…an exquisite work. The prose flows like water with all the dynamics and beauty therein.” – Paul Hawken, author of ‘Blessed Unrest’, New York Times Bestseller, USA

“The book makes me dream of climbing the Chandra Gup—the steep mud volcano of Makran—to toss coconuts into the crater to appease Lord Shiva; to hear about the Peelu berries ripening [in the desert] and to meet Abdul Wahid to know more about the brown bears of Deosai!! Very sensitive and scholarly…the book will surely be regarded as a classic; the characters described are genuine archetypes of humanity.” – Roland & Sabrina Michaud, Photographers for National Geographic, authors of Mirror of the Orient, Paris France

Authors Biography

Mehjabeen Abidi-Habiban ecologist and writer, has for 25 years worked in the social development field. Understanding how people live within nature has led to a previous book, academic articles and PhD. She lives with her family in Lahore.

Richard Garstanga field biologist, for 17 years worked on saving Pakistan’s species, national parks and leading the Pakistan Wetlands Project with WWF-Pakistan. He now resides in Cape Town with his Pakistani wife.

Rina Saeed Khan an award-winning environmental journalist is well known for her columns in Pakistan’s Dawn and the UK’s Guardian newspapers. She lives in Islamabad.