This photograph taken on April 29, 2014, shows Pakistani boatmen travelling on a boat loaded with chopped mangroves along a tributary close to the Arabian Sea in Karachi. -AFP
KARACHI: Thick mangroves have long protected Karachi, southern Pakistan’s sprawling metropolis, from battering by the Arabian Sea, but pollution, badly managed irrigation and years of illegal logging have left this natural barrier in a parlous state.
Experts fear that loss of the natural barrier formed by the mangroves could put the city of nearly 20 million people at greater risk from violent storms and even tsunamis.
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