A nosy boat starts off at the Karachi fish harbour. The boatman wearing a Pakistani Shalwar Kamees and a west coat with a US flag undocks the boat to embark on 5 – 7 days journy in the deep sea.
The fishermen known as “Mahigeer” or Meer Bahar are identified as a tribe in Pakistan. They are mostly concentrated in the South East of Pakistan.
Winter is about to go and Spring is just around the corner as the fishermen set for their journey in to the sea. The sky is filled with light clouds one can see ocasional groups of brown, white & black coloured cybarian birds going over the sea winds to an unknown destination. Probably it is time to return for these gusts of nature on the coasts of South Eastern Pakistan.
I have embarked on this journey with my colegue Sharjeel Balouch and Abdu Haq Chachar with an aim to identify the circumstances and dificulties of sea in the life of these fishermen.
Far off we can see a graish line of some thing Mohammad Ali Shah explained that they are the jungles of Teemar (Mangroves) These jungles are spread all over the coastline of Sindh. Basically these forests of mangroves are nurseries of Shrimps and fish. They also help to ptect the villages and population for typhones and tsunamies
About 5 years ago there were about 260 thousand hectors of mangroves forests here. These days due to polution in the sea and not enough water being left in the Indus delta these forests have reduced to only 70 thousand hectors.
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