This chapter is about the conclusion of the environmental awareness and the role of political leaders for environmental protection in Haripur. This study concludes that knowledge about environment determine the role of political leaders in protection of environment. According to our hypothesis it is clear that the political leaders who have high literacy and high awareness have high motivation for environmental protection than those who have low or nil awareness. The aware leaders are playing active role in environmental protection and can play more effective role due to their awareness of environment.
It has been found that political leaders who are more literate and have high awareness about environment they have done regardable work for the protection of environment as they had campaign for the planting more trees and campaign against the massive cutting of forest and smuggling and corruption in forest departments. But on the other hand leaders who are unaware about the importance of environment they have no interest in the protection of environment they think that environmental problems i.e. Pollution, over population, deforestation, extinction of species is not so big problem. Their opinion is that the main problems of Pakistan are terrorism, poverty, unemployment, less availability of resources for example electricity, water, fuels for vehicles and house hold usage. Although these are big problems but mostly of them are interlinked with environmental degradation for example unemployment and less availability of resources have a direct link with over population.
From the questionnaire survey and interviews it is concluded that environmental awareness level is very low in the political leaders of district Haripur.They have not enough knowledge about environment and its importance .90% leaders know about environment and they have ability to define environment in a precise way. Most of political leaders are familiar with environmental degradation and environmental problems but only some of them have think about the solution for these problems. Most of the political leaders give low and medium importance very few think environments as a most important issue.
Awareness about biodiversity in political leaders of Haripur is remarkably very low. Only 10% to 20% are able to tell about national parks, endanger species, extinction of species, and purpose of establishing a national park. They have neglected the biodiversity in a way that more than 70% are not able to tell the name of national bird, national tree, and national animal. They are not familiar about the effects of extinction of a species on environment.
Awareness about techniques which are used for the reduction of degradation in environment due to different human activities such as construction, uses of natural resources is also extremely low in political leaders .out of 20 only one is familiar about NDMA, EIA, EMS what a strange thing that those things are necessary in developed country and consider as a part of development our leaders even have not listen about them.
Leaders are unable to describe that either a disaster is manmade or natural .they are unable to find a link between human anthropogenic activities and their result which comes in the form of disaster. Most of leaders are unable to give applicable suggestions to reduce the destruction of a disaster such as flood.
Awareness level about forest, pollution, over population is medium in leaders. They are familiar with these but awareness level is not as high as compare to the political leaders of foreign .because of low awareness about these environmental issues these issues are totally neglected by the leaders. From personal observation it is concluded that the leaders have never talked about pollution, over population, massive deforestation although they are the cream of society but their behavior towards environment is shameful.
When they were asked to give suggestion to combat these environmental problems including deforestation, high rate of pollution, over population only few were able to give precise and applicable suggestions.
More than 60% leaders are unaware about the hottest issues of world about environment for example they don’t know about global warming or ozone layer depletion. They are unable to define the reasons behind global warming and ozone layer depletion and there effect on environment. They have listened about these environmental issues but due to lack of interest they don’t pay any attention to it.
From this survey it is concluded that there is a lack of zeal and motivation in political leaders towards environment .only few have some campaign for the safety of environment that was also just on local level. From personal observation it is concluded that behavior of mostly leaders toward environment is destructive instead of constructive. They like to hunt even the most endanger spices of animals and birds in Haripur and leaders show more interest in economics then environment for example when they were asked to tell economic benefit of forest more than 95% gave accurate answer but when they were asked about benefits of forest toward environment score was less than 60%.
There are a lot of reasons behind the very low awareness level of political leaders in district Haripur. Main of them is that political leaders don’t have their personal interest in the safety of environment. So they had not read any news or column about environment or never attend any workshop arranged for the safety of environment .there is also a shortage of literature about the safety and importance of environment .although mostly leaders are highly qualified but due to lack of any martial about environment in the course of arts, law, technical, and science student except the students of biology they do not become aware about importance of environment. Another reason is our media which do not tells people about the importance and safety of environment. They don’t make even one documentary film on environmental degradation. They never share any environmental information in an interesting way to attract people towards environment. Another reason behind low awareness about environment is the behavior of common people they don’t ask leaders to do work for environment .if they ask leaders to provide clean, neat and sustained environment leaders will keep them aware and up to date about environment to address people and to make promises with them.
If leaders become aware about the environment its importance, and its safety they can do a lot of work for the environment. These leaders become MPA,MNA or minister and have to govern the different departments if they become aware about the environment they can launch laws, rules, plans and policies for the safety of environment and they also implement these laws with power.
Leaders can also launch campaign about the safety of environment for example the can motivate their companion to grow trees or to save the wild life
