Lynch: A few hours drive from Karachi, in southern Pakistan, the first sight of what used to be one of the world's great rivers is jarringï¿½ From a bridge above the Indus, Mohammed Tahir Quereshi points to a vista dominated not by waterï¿½ but by sand.
Quereshi: ï¿½The sand dunes, they are extending right from the upper stream to the Arabian Sea.
Lynch: ï¿½So the mighty Indus river is mighty no more?ï¿½
Quereshi: ï¿½Absolutely, it's not a river, it's a small canalï¿½ï¿½
Lynch: Quereshi is a coastal ecosytems director with the International Union for the Conservation of Natureï¿½ He says the river used to span five kilometres here - now it's barely 200 meters wide. And as the Indus has dried up, it has taken people's livelihoods with it.
Mohammed: ï¿½About one in four people here are left, the rest have gone to find work in the city. There was a time when we had so much help we could fill up our Datsun truck full of fish. Today, the fishermen cut wood - they can't find fish.ï¿½
Gul Mohammed with defunct water pumpGul Mohammed with defunct water pump
Mehman: ï¿½All our lands are lying useless because of brackish water. Hundreds of thousands of acres of land is useless.ï¿½
Quereshi: ï¿½And when they say there's no funds, I don't believe because I've handled budgets for twenty years. If there's a will, there's a way.ï¿½
Quereshi: ï¿½Because if you manage water and land properly you can engage more people in that sector and you can grow more you can export more and that can generate more funds for the country for the people and more investments. So there's a whole cycle will run.ï¿½
Majeed: ï¿½All these politicians are generally big landlords who own acres and hundreds of thousands of acres of land, and water is the major input in getting the agriculture from these lands. So they have their own interest and that creates problems.ï¿½
Majeed: ï¿½You know, if you deprive one farmer of his livelihood it's a dangerous sign. How he's going to meet the requirements of his familyï¿½ so this situation one can imagine it will not only become alarming. It will become dangerous as well, people fighting with each other, people fighting with the government.ï¿½
Quereshi: ï¿½It is one of the reason Pakistan wants Kashmir issue to be settled in a way so at least we can protect our lifeline.ï¿½
Lynch: In the Indus delta town of Kati Bundar, a fisherman gets ready to head out. Locals have lost the fish and shrimp they used to catch when the river disappeared. But the sea still holds crab - so that's the main catch now. There are more problems besetting the town. As the Indus has disappeared, so has the silt it used to carry to the deltaï¿½ without it, the sea is licking away at the land and flooding is increasing. Mohammed Ismail Mehman has watched his town shrink from 15 thousand residents to only three thousand. Mehman talks of the hardship.
Mehman: ï¿½Fishing and farming is all people here have really ever known, now they can barely make a living.ï¿½
Lynch: A few hours drive from Karachi, in southern Pakistan, the first sight of what used to be one of the world's great rivers is jarringï¿½ From a bridge above the Indus, Mohammed Tahir Quereshi points to a vista dominated not by waterï¿½ but by sand.
Quereshi: ï¿½The sand dunes, they are extending right from the upper stream to the Arabian Sea.
Lynch: ï¿½So the mighty Indus river is mighty no more?ï¿½
Quereshi: ï¿½Absolutely, it's not a river, it's a small canalï¿½ï¿½
Lynch: Quereshi is a coastal ecosytems director with the International Union for the Conservation of Natureï¿½ He says the river used to span five kilometres here - now it's barely 200 meters wide. And as the Indus has dried up, it has taken people's livelihoods with it.
Mohammed: ï¿½About one in four people here are left, the rest have gone to find work in the city. There was a time when we had so much help we could fill up our Datsun truck full of fish. Today, the fishermen cut wood - they can't find fish.ï¿½
Gul Mohammed with defunct water pumpGul Mohammed with defunct water pump
Mehman: ï¿½All our lands are lying useless because of brackish water. Hundreds of thousands of acres of land is useless.ï¿½
Quereshi: ï¿½And when they say there's no funds, I don't believe because I've handled budgets for twenty years. If there's a will, there's a way.ï¿½
Quereshi: ï¿½Because if you manage water and land properly you can engage more people in that sector and you can grow more you can export more and that c
an generate more funds for the country for the people and more investments. So there's a whole cycle will run.ï¿½
Majeed: ï¿½All these politicians are generally big landlords who own acres and hundreds of thousands of acres of land, and water is the major input in getting the agriculture from these lands. So they have their own interest and that creates problems.ï¿½
Majeed: ï¿½You know, if you deprive one farmer of his livelihood it's a dangerous sign. How he's going to meet the requirements of his familyï¿½ so this situation one can imagine it will not only become alarming. It will become dangerous as well, people fighting with each other, people fighting with the government.ï¿½
Quereshi: ï¿½It is one of the reason Pakistan wants Kashmir issue to be settled in a way so at least we can protect our lifeline.ï¿½
Lynch: In the Indus delta town of Kati Bundar, a fisherman gets ready to head out. Locals have lost the fish and shrimp they used to catch when the river disappeared. But the sea still holds crab - so that's the main catch now. There are more problems besetting the town. As the Indus has disappeared, so has the silt it used to carry to the deltaï¿½ without it, the sea is licking away at the land and flooding is increasing. Mohammed Ismail Mehman has watched his town shrink from 15 thousand residents to only three thousand. Mehman talks of the hardship.
Mehman: ï¿½Fishing and farming is all people here have really ever known, now they can barely make a living.ï¿½