ISLAMABAD, Urging students to make footprints rather than following them, Minister for Environment Hameedullah Jan Afridi on Saturday asked the youth to capture every moment to make the environment better.

“Don’t be tied down to a day, week, month or year to celebrate any occasion of environment but try to make a difference every minute,” he said at a ceremony held to celebrate the International Biodiversity Day here.

He said lack of resources, awareness and ill planning had created an unhealthy environment in the country.

The minister said the biodi versity day was more significant because 2010 had been declared as the year of biodiversity.

According to the ministry of environment, Pakistan’s biodiversity that included millions of distinct biological species, which were once considered imperishable and unadulterated, are now prone to rapid depletion and contamination mainly due to anthropogenic activities.

Major threats to the biodiversity are from deforestation, soil erosion and desertification, salination, water logging, hunting, fishing and agriculture practices.

The rapidly increasing domestic livestock population is degrading rangelands and forests.

“There is a strong tradition of illegal hunting in Pakistan which has resulted in decline of bird and mammal species,” he said.

Calling for maximum benefits from the partnership between students and his ministry, Mr Afridi announced the initiation of an environment club which would be a joint venture of the one UN programme of the ministry of environment and the environmental sciences department of Fatima Jinnah University. He stressed the need for joining hands to unfold a new era of preservation of nature.