The effects of environmental scarcity, resource capture, and ecological marginalization have been wide-ranging. Most notably, they have: constrained agricultural productivity; exacerbated rural poverty and helped cause large waves of migration; contributed to widespread urban decay; and hindered economic growth and disrupted legitimized and authoritative institutions and social relations in the society.

Agricultural Production

Notwithstanding marked industrial growth over the past two decades, agriculture remains an important sector of Pakistan's economy, contributing 23 percent to GDP, employing roughly 51 percent of the labor force, and generally supporting about 70 percent of the country's total population (either directly or indirectly).¹¹⁴ Total agricultural output has been rising at an average of 4 percent per annum since the beginning of the green revolution in the 1960s - a rate that exceeds average population growth.¹¹⁵

Still, as noted above, there has been a general decline in the country's agricultural resource base. Uncertain and variable water supplies affect agriculture. The majority of irrigated lands suffer from some degree of waterlogging and salinization, which causes the loss of about 40,000 hectares of irrigated lands each year; a total of 5.7 million hectares (well over one-quarter of all agricultural lands in the country) are salt affected.¹¹⁶

Food production has increased 50 percent over the past 20 years, yet the area under cultivation has risen 8 percent. This differential indicates a marked increase in the intensity of Pakistani agriculture: higher productivity has come from irrigation, fertilizer, pesticides, the introduction of new crop varieties, and changes in cropping practices. Although there is still significant potential for further improvement in yields (Table 9), the country's food supply remains highly dependent on good harvests rather than on any institutionalized process of technical change, and it is therefore vulnerable to sharp downturns.¹¹⁷ Furthermore, many of the improvements in agriculture are not distributed equally throughout the country (for example, extension services in the mountains are weak).

Meanwhile, fragmentation of landholdings due to rapid population growth and prevailing laws of inheritance is continuously reducing the efficiency of small farms. Indeed, while total cropland increased from 14.6 million to 20.6 million hectares between 1947 and 1987, per capita cropland declined from 0.44 to 0.2 hectares during the same period. At present rates, cultivable land per person could drop as low as 0.08 hectares within 40 years.¹¹⁸ By 1988, largely as a result of these problems, Pakistan's National Commission on Agriculture was reporting a steady decline in farm yields and a rising tendency among the rural population to farm marginal land.¹¹⁹

More recently, the final report of the Pakistan National Conservation Strategy claims that per capita agricultural growth is currently stagnating.¹²⁰ While increases in agricultural inputs can compensate somewhat, sharply diminishing returns to land are ultimately unavoidable.¹²¹ As population increases, greater demands will be placed on the finite resource base. In the absence of major change, the report argues, economic growth is bound to suffer and food deficits are likely to threaten a number of regions - most notably, sandy deserts, the western dry mountains, and barani (rainfed) areas.¹²²

Rural Poverty and Migration

Constraints on agricultural productivity contribute to rural poverty and unemployment. Despite the fact that over 70 percent of all rural households are classified as agricultural, many do not earn enough income to meet their basic needs. In 1981, a study of agriculture in Punjab found that one-quarter of all small farmers (who make up the majority of all farmers in the province) were forced to supplement their agricultural earnings by other means.¹²³ Other sources have reported that rural underemployment approaches 60 percent nationwide.¹²⁴

Accompanying such problems is a marked lack of basic infrastructure and human services. Less than one-third of the country's 45,000 villages have access to wholesale trading centers through a network of all-weather roads.¹²⁵ Access to education is lower in rural than in urban areas, fertility rates are slightly higher, and cases of undernutrition among children are more widespread.¹²⁶ Only 17 percent of the rural population have access to potable water, a full 95 percent obtain some portion of their water supply from groundwater, and only 4 percent of the population have access to sewerage and drainage facilities.¹²⁷ Although these deficiencies promote disease, hospitals and other health centers are sorely lacking: there are only 455 health centers to service the approximately 70 percent of the total population (about 89.5 million people) who live in rural areas.¹²⁸ Not surprisingly, the rural mortality rates are higher than urban rates.

The poor quality of rural life encourages a heavy movement of migrants from rural to more prosperous urban areas. Much of the migration has been from the north; particularly from the NWFP to Karachi, but the large industrial cities of Punjab also draw workers: migrants from economically stressed areas such as Peshawar, Malakand, Rawalpindi, and Sargodha are especially prevalent (Table 10).¹²⁹

These migrants are usually young adult males in search of improved economic opportunities for themselves and their families. Their absence often serves to deepen rural poverty. The loss of healthy, able-bodied youth reduces agricultural productivity by placing increased demands on those who remain (women, children, and the aged). Gains in rural household income due to remittances from migrants tend to be directed toward increased consumption rather than investment in capital. The result is often greater awareness of a more affluent urban lifestyle, yet lingering rural impoverishment.

Urban Decay

Urban growth has been staggering, averaging from 4 percent to almost 5 percent per year in most major cities (Table 11); such rates imply a doubling time for urban population of between 14 and 18 years. Over the past decade, some of the influx has been produced by the entry of about 3 to 3.5 million Afghan refugees into the country (as a result of the Afghan War) and the return of over 1 million Pakistani workers from the Middle East. Still, the majority of migration emanates from rural areas within the country, accounting for a full 22 percent of total urban growth.¹³⁰

Along with already high natural growth, such migration has placed enormous demands on urban infrastructure, facilities, and services. Invariably, however, municipal institutions cannot accommodate these needs. In particular, there has been insufficient investment capital to meet the absorption costs of the rapidly growing population. According to Syed Ayub Qutub, the investment resource pool generated by Pakistan's recent annual 6 to 7 percent GNP growth covers only 28 to 32 percent of urban investment requirements. With capital investment per capita likely to remain low, and with trends indicating that over three-fifths of future Pakistani population growth will occur in urban areas, an increase - absolute and proportionate - in unserviced urban populations is inevitable.¹³¹

Evidence of Pakistan's inability to cope with the "urban explosion" is abundant. In Karachi, while population rises at 6 percent per annum, far above the current national rate of 3.1 percent, urban services expand by only 1.2 percent.¹³² Housing for low-income groups has become a major problem, with the government able to meet only about one-eighth of demand. Meanwhile, an informal system of illegal occupation and subdivision of state land for sale to low-income families has developed. The uncontrolled growth often encroaches on valuable agricultural land and the plant and animal life inhabiting it. While Lahore and Faisalabad had several tracts of good agricultural land 25 years ago, there is now no arable land within their city limits.¹³³ Similarly, the city of Peshawar has lost over 2,700 hectares of agricultural land to urban users over the last 20 years.¹³⁴

Acute shortages of electricity and water are pervasive in Karachi, and sanitation services are often nonexistent. In 1983, per capita water consumption stood at approximately 80 liters per day - a level well below international standards.¹³⁵ Only 40 percent of all households received piped water, usually for only a few hours a day. Others were served either by standpipes (about one pipe per 270 persons) or purchased water from tankers.¹³⁶ And one-fifth of all households had sewerage connections.¹³⁷

The Karachi Electric Supply Corporation generates over 1,700 megawatts against a peak demand of approximately 1,450 megawatts, yet the city faces constant electricity shortages due to a decaying distribution system and inadequate maintenance.¹³⁸ Theft rates have been reported to be as high as 20 percent.¹³⁹ And in the absence of additional generation capacity, the corporation anticipates a net shortfall of over 1,200 megawatts by the year 2000.¹⁴⁰

Karachi and Islamabad are the only two cities in Pakistan possessing sewage treatment plants and these facilities are overtaxed. In Karachi, only 15 to 20 percent of sewage is treated, while the rest flows directly into the sea. Similarly, only 33 percent of the city's solid waste is transported to dump sites; the remaining refuse is picked over by scavengers in the streets.¹⁴¹ Waterborne illnesses due to poor sanitation account for 25 to 30 percent of total cases in public hospitals and dispensaries nationwide and for an estimated 40 percent of deaths.¹⁴²

Industrial pollution of water and air from chemical plants, cement factories, and the like poses additional hazards. In Karachi, industrial activities result in high concentrations of metals, metal salts, bacteria, acids, and oils in bodies of water and their surrounding lands. Tests also show industrial contamination of seawater.¹⁴³ Studies indicate that in Punjab, large segments of the population are suffering from respiratory ailments and eye problems due to air pollution, and plant and crop damage is evident as well.¹⁴⁴ A growing number of automobiles, along with widespread burning of solid wastes for heating, lighting, and disposal, compounds this pollution problem (solid waste is one of the nation's chief fuels). According to the final report on the Pakistan National Conservation Strategy, "the average Pakistani vehicle emits 20 times as much hydrocarbons, 25 times as much carbon monoxide, and 3.6 times as much nitrous oxide in grams per kilometer as the average vehicle in the United States."¹⁴⁵

Quantitative studies of the economic impact of this pollution are rare, yet, based on evidence from other developing countries, there are strong grounds to assume that the costs are large, in terms of both labor productivity and income. In India, for instance, waterborne diseases alone are responsible for the loss of some 73 million workdays annually; the cost in medical treatment and lost production is estimated at US$600 million per year. A comparative study of health and economic output across 22 African, Asian, and Latin American nations has found that the influence of health on economic output is quite high relative to other factors, including agricultural production.¹⁴⁶ Pollution also has indirect costs; in particular, it boosts the expenditure of time and energy required to secure clean services. The search for adequate water supplies and sanitation facilities reduces the resources and labor available for activities that increase economic output and earnings.¹⁴⁷

Economic Decline and State Weakness

Reduction of crop yields due to water, soil, and air pollution; loss of agricultural land resulting from salinization, waterlogging, erosion, and urban expansion; nutrient loss stemming from erosion and deforestation; loss of hydroelectric power owing to the siltation of reservoirs; and loss of timber due to poor harvesting practices all inevitably reduce an economy's capacity to produce wealth.¹⁴⁸ These economic effects weigh disproportionately on already marginal regions and groups.

Financial and political demands on government increase. Resource scarcities raise the demand for compensating industry and infrastructure and for aid to affected marginal groups, especially rural-urban migrants. At the same time, scarcity-induced reductions in economic productivity can restrict state revenues. A widening gap between demands upon the state and its capacity to meet these demands can, in turn, progressively weaken the state.¹⁴⁹

Scarcity & Economic Vulnerability. In general, aggregate growth of Pakistan's economy appears strong: annual GDP has climbed by more than 6 percent in real terms for most of the 1980s and early 1990s.¹⁵⁰ A marked expansion in industrial activity has been key to this growth. Industry today accounts for 27 percent of total GDP and has registered annual growth rates of 9 percent over the past decade.¹⁵¹ Meanwhile, agriculture and services have registered average growth rates of 4 and 7 percent respectively; the former now accounts for 23 percent of GDP.¹⁵²

Nevertheless, these aggregate statistics mask serious structural weaknesses in the economy - weaknesses that are aggravated by environmental scarcities and that have disproportionate effects on poorer segments of Pakistan's population. Ownership of land and industrial wealth is highly concentrated and relatively free of direct taxation. Industry tends to be capital- rather than labor-intensive; in fact, manufacturing has registered a net decline in its contribution to employment over the past 25 years.¹⁵³ Meanwhile, agriculture continues to employ over half the workforce, it contributes a substantial part of manufacturing value added (for example, textile industries often draw their raw material from the agricultural sector),¹⁵⁴ and it accounts for 70 percent of exports.¹⁵⁵ In sum, a significant portion of Pakistan's population and economy remains strongly tied to the country's resource base.

The average annual rate of increase in agricultural production has been only slightly greater than annual population growth. According to the report on the Pakistan National Conservation Strategy, the inadequate performance of Pakistan's agricultural sector has already forced the importation of food grains worth millions of rupees annually, severely straining the national treasury.¹⁵⁶ Similarly, Pakistan's 1991 report to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development notes that because large increases in irrigation cropland are now unlikely, "it will be difficult for crop production to keep pace with population growth in future." Consequently, serious food shortages over the next two decades " cannot be ruled out."¹⁵⁷

Problems with the country's power sector have caused substantial economic losses. As of late 1994, the country's total installed electrical capacity was 10,586 megawatts, with chronic shortages of about 2,000 megawatts. These shortages have resulted in loadshedding during the summer dry season, costing the economy an estimated $950 million annually.¹⁵⁸ Transmission losses and theft are currently estimated at over 12 percent of power capacity nationally and over 20 percent in some cities - a level twice that regarded as acceptable by international agencies.¹⁵⁹

Perhaps most troubling is the growing problem of unemployment and underemployment throughout the country.¹⁶⁰ At one time, the export of labor to the Middle East and the West, and generous aid packages from a number of foreign donors (the United States in particular), helped compensate for Pakistan's surplus labor problem. But such opportunities are less available in the post Gulf War environment. Many people working in the Middle East returned as demand for their services contracted. Such migrants had long provided a source of valuable remittances, yet they are now a growing proportion of the unemployed.

Demands for government spending continue to grow, yet investment in development is constrained by high defense costs and Pakistan's heavy debt load. Moreover, state revenues have not grown as rapidly as needed. In recent years, development projects for which some foreign financing has been provided have been cancelled because the state could not secure matching funds. In its search for credit, the government has crowded the private sector out of the capital market. Pakistan's annual international debt-servicing costs amount to almost 3 percent of GNP or 23.6 percent of export receipts. Tighter conditions on loans from international lending agencies are restricting foreign borrowing.

In short, despite apparently robust aggregate economic growth, the current pattern of Pakistani economic development reinforces impoverishment for the majority of the population and an increasing polarization of society into rich and poor. The benefits of Pakistan's development are not widely shared - a situation unlikely to change in the near future - and most Pakistanis remain highly dependent on a limited, and ever more fragile, resource base.

State Weakness. Alongside signs of growing economic trouble and societal polarization are signs of increasing weakness of the Pakistani state. Nowhere is this weakness more obvious than in the nation's cities. In Karachi, government has literally lost control over the management of housing allocations, land taxes, and policing. The urban land market in the city is unique. Approximately 80 percent of Karachi's land is owned by the government. These lands are often under long-term lease and managed by various governmental agencies. Yet despite large-scale public ownership, many serviced sites developed by the Karachi Development Authority have been sold to investors at well below market value.¹⁶¹ Moreover, while restrictions govern the number of plots that can be individually owned, these rules are circumvented with relative ease. The result is widespread speculation and rent seeking, much to the benefit of the rich.¹⁶² An estimated 5 square kilometers of serviced land in the center of the city lie vacant due to speculation, while surrounding areas are packed with slums. Only middle- and high-income groups can afford good housing, while those of lower income encroach on public land.

The city's tax base is very narrow. In 1987-88, property taxes accounted for only 10 percent of government receipts. More than half of all properties were not taxed;¹⁶³ assessments on those that were taxed were invariably badly outdated. Public services, however, are heavily subsidized and underpriced, which increases rural-urban migration and causes demand for these services to rise.

Nor have urban governments proved themselves capable of coping with the violence that plagues Pakistani cities. Police lack the equipment and expertise to conduct effective investigative work. According to Jamiel Youssef, head of a civilian committee that liaises with the Karachi authorities, "the Karachi police have no fingerprinting facility, no computerized national data system for criminal records, and . . . [outmoded] ballistic and forensic equipment."¹⁶⁴

Some experts insist that the main problem is corruption. In certain areas of Karachi, police connections to organized crime are so tight that residents feel they cannot report criminal acts or injustices they witness. The police often use the people they detain to extort money from anxious relatives; the "cash value" of a suspect is determined by such factors as ethnicity, family wealth, and possible family connections to the administration and pro-government politicians.¹⁶⁵

Increasingly, in fact, state power has been eclipsed by a "parallel government" composed of heavily armed, organized criminal elements, capable of holding legitimate authorities at bay with force and bribes. In urban areas, local crime syndicates have often proved more adept than local authorities at managing some neighborhoods, offering individuals access to shelter, security, and employment that the state cannot match. During the mid-1980s, in Orangi Township, Karachi, crime bosses even threatened to orchestrate ethnic riots if local authorities attempted to launch raids against their drug operations.¹⁶⁶

Rural areas have fared little better. Rather than place their trust in local authorities, large landowners have long employed security staffs to guard their holdings against encroachment by covetous neighbors. Such staffs are often tempted to exploit their power for additional profit - frequently at the expense of other landholders. Recent years have witnessed a marked rise of lawlessness in Sind, the NWFP, and Baluchistan.

The Tando Allahyar region of Sind provides a vivid example of the government's inability to ensure law and order. Located some 150 kilometers northeast of Karachi, this region is one of the most fertile areas of the country. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, organized gangs of armed bandits literally held it for ransom. Largely composed of migrants from the barren and resource-scarce northern regions of Sind, the gangs formed a federation that acted to gather and disseminate information concerning planned raids by law enforcement agencies and to divide the region's spoils among themselves.

Each time a new crop was harvested, the gangs descended on farmers for protection money. Those who refused to pay were subject to abduction or the destruction of their crops and electricity transformers. Enforcement agencies were unable to protect the rural population. At times, victims failed to register complaints with authorities because they did not trust the police. Only direct involvement by the army restored order.¹⁶⁷ Still, many of the gangs have not been eradicated, and recent incidents of violence in rural Sind indicate a resurgence of their activity.¹⁶⁸

Such intimidation not only shakes government legitimacy but also produces a climate unfavorable to investment and the generation of economic growth and tax revenues. The financial resources upon which the state can draw to address the demands of its growing population are further constrained. Many landlords have moved to cities, forcing down agricultural harvests, and large numbers of entrepreneurs have deserted Sind Province entirely.

Urban violence has had similar effects. Noteworthy are the severe economic consequences of turmoil in Karachi, which is Pakistan's largest city, premier industrial port, and home to more than 65 percent of its industry and 80 percent of its finance. In 1987, political violence closed the port and industrial areas for days. Businesses closed down, industrialists fled to the north, and unemployment soared.¹⁶⁹ According to John Adams, the violence, curfews, and plant closings cost the economy an estimated $175 million in the early part of the year alone.¹⁷⁰ In December 1994, the army's withdrawal from Karachi caused a 207-point drop in the Karachi Stock Exchange Index (about 15 percent of the total value of the exchange), and U.S. and Japanese companies pulled their executives and their families out of the city. More recently, industry sources claimed that armed violence along with a three-day general strike resulted in the loss of $260 million in revenue and left potential investors reluctant to even visit the city.¹⁷¹

The economic impact of Karachi's civil strife extends far beyond the city itself. Businesses have suffered nationwide. Fan manufacturers in Gujrat anticipate a 25 percent drop in sales largely due to the market shutdowns caused by turmoil in Karachi in 1995.¹⁷² Textile manufacturers in Multan and Faisalabad have reported rising difficulties in recovering payments from Karachi traders due to falling sales in the city, and businessmen in the NWFP expect problems from a large influx of unemployed youth returning to the region in the wake of layoffs from Karachi factories.¹⁷³

Environmental scarcities and the processes accompanying them are encouraging the violent expression of long-standing ethnic, communal, and class-based rivalries in Pakistani society. As resource scarcities mount grievances rise, especially across existing social cleavages within society; at the same time, the capacity of the state to address these grievances and to prevent violent challenges to its authority is diminished.

Scarcity and Rural Conflict

Developments in the country's rural areas suggest that growing deprivation among particular groups has caused an increase in violence over the last decade. Environmental pressures have played a significant role in generating the grievances behind this conflict.

The bandits (or "dacoits") of rural Sind are a case in point. Although banditry has a long history in Pakistan, the 1980s witnessed a sharp increase in the frequency and scope of this activity.¹⁷⁴ It was no longer the vocation of a few isolated individuals but rather involved organized gangs that were increasingly capable of eluding punishment by local authorities. The bandits are mostly migrants from the barren northern regions of Sind; many were once sharecroppers, but they lost their livelihoods because of multiple economic problems.

According to Christina Lamb, members of one group of bandits - operating in and around the forest of Dadu - describe their actions as driven by "a combination of the feudal system, unemployment and the difficulty of eking a living from the unforgiving land through which salinity is creeping like a white plague, rendering thousands more acres uncultivable each year."¹⁷⁵

The bandits place their criminal activities in a context of revolt against a landed elite whose control over resources has combined with severe resource scarcity to threaten the livelihood of rural laborers. In other words, supply, demand, and structural scarcities conjoin to increase grievances and violence in rural areas.

Less obvious is the violence among tribal groups in the forest regions of the NWFP. The actions of the timber mafia have not only marginalized indigenous groups, but also produced conflict between haves and have-nots in forest areas. Growing protests from those threatened by the unchecked exploitation of the forests have led to reprisals by profiteers. Although widespread conflict has been avoided, incidents occur regularly.

Scarcity and Urban Violence

Urban violence represents the predominant form of civil strife in Pakistan today. There are many causes of this violence, and they are rooted in the particular configuration of geographical, economic, ethnic, and political forces shaping each city. Nevertheless, the rural-urban migration partly induced by rural environmental scarcities has worsened grievances among rival groups and classes in the cities. In combination with weakening state institutions, these rising grievances have raised the likelihood of violence.

High natural population growth and a rapid influx of migrants have pushed diverse and contending societal groups into close contact. Inequalities among economic classes and ethnic groups are therefore more obvious than would be the case in rural areas, and these inequalities are exacerbated by competition for exceedingly limited urban resources. The result is greater group affiliation and cohesion and violence along predominantly ethnic and class-based lines.¹⁷⁶

Karachi exhibits these processes. While the Muhajirs continue to run much of the city's business and industry, they face increasing competition from other groups - for example, Punjabis. Pathans make up the majority of the working class and have gained a virtual monopoly over Karachi's transport sector. Retaining deeply rooted tribal traditions and support systems, they are in effect a separate state within the city. Meanwhile, the Sindhi minority has kept its dominance of provincial government and educational institutions through a system of quotas.

Rivalries among these groups are long-standing and flow largely from the relative position each group occupies and each group's efforts to maintain, if not improve its status. The city's high urban growth rate - about three to four hundred thousand persons per year - has accentuated these conflicts. Local government is characterized by murky lines of authority, few taxing powers, rampant corruption, and little accountability.¹⁷⁷ It lacks the capacity and basic institutions needed to accommodate the demands of an expanding, diverse, and quarrelling Karachi population. With institutionalized and peaceful channels of action on grievances unavailable, government legitimacy has plummeted. Popular loyalties and allegiances remain local, and efforts to redress grievances often take the form of ethnic and class-based violence. Such violence has been on the rise (Table 12).

At times, an isolated, seemingly chance incident - for example, a traffic accident or a breakdown in services - serves to ignite turmoil. The cause of the mishap is attributed to a particular community and quickly escalates into a spiral of retaliation among contending ethnic groups. For instance, minibus accidents have sparked ethnic riots, owing to Pathan dominance of Karachi's transport sector. Fights between residents and an underfunded police force are also common; the fact that the police are heavily drawn from the northern provinces heightens ethnic tension. In one incident, the death of a Muhajir student triggered a succession of clashes between Muhajirs, police, and transporters that lasted over a month. By the time the situation was brought under control, over 40 had died and hundreds had been wounded in clashes.¹⁷⁸

Frustration stemming from the lack of urban services in poorer areas of the city also prompts violence. Attacks on the offices of the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation and the Karachi Water and Sewage Board are common. In summer 1994, the city's overloaded electricity distribution system broke down - leaving entire areas of Karachi in darkness. But fear of violence deterred repairmen from providing help. Demonstrations against power shortages were organized. And in July 1994, violence erupted as police opened fire on angry crowds demanding better service.¹⁷⁹ The scarcities and inefficiencies of a decaying urban environment may thus act as a trigger by providing a specific incident - and a ready-made pretext - for the unleashing of ethnic or class-based hatreds.

Current Trends, Future Dangers

The general climate of insecurity pervading Karachi persists. Horizontal polarization of ethnic and religious groups is unabated, as is vertical polarization by economic stratum. The city's educational system is now crippled: some colleges have been forced to close, and others serve as armed strongholds for warring factions. Education is increasingly privatized and segregated along class lines.

Outbreaks of violence are increasingly common in Hyderabad, Islamabad, and Rawalpindi.¹⁸⁰ Some of this violence appears to involve similar scarcities of resources. In spring 1994, water shortages in Islamabad produced widespread protest, the hijacking of water trucks by residents in harder-hit poorer districts, and violent confrontations with police.¹⁸¹ Moreover, in the NWFP, high natural population growth along with large influxes of Afghan refugees into such cities as Peshawar and Mingora is causing depletion of natural resources in surrounding areas and growing concern over the ability of urban infrastructure to handle the rising population. A recent report observes that in Mingora, a "shortage of basic services, narrow economic base, and bad governance have [had] visible impacts on the social fabric and [are] resulting in a steady decay of the urban environment and a growing sense of deprivation among the people."¹⁸² This decay has bred a "highly volatile situation in and around Mingora."¹⁸³ Although widespread violence has been avoided, sporadic incidents have caused general worries about sharply deteriorating law and order.¹⁸⁴

More broadly, there are mounting concerns over the potential for conflict arising from major development projects that promote national economic growth at the expense of local communities. A good example is the Ghazi-Barotha hydropower project. Consisting of a barrage, a power channel, and a 1,425-megawatt generating complex, the project aims to use the drop of the Indus River between the tailrace of the Tarbela Dam and the confluence of the Indus and Haro Rivers to produce electricity.¹⁸⁵ It promises to provide a much-needed renewable and emission-free source of energy to the country.

Yet the project will also cut off almost the entire downstream flow of water for seven months of the year, reducing the quantity to less than 12 percent of the current flow in the river during the dry season.¹⁸⁶ Environmental groups point out that planners have paid insufficient attention to the environmental, economic, and social consequences of the enterprise,¹⁸⁷ neglecting important questions concerning the project's impact on groundwater, on local water quality, and on a downstream population highly dependent on the river for economic and social activity.¹⁸⁸ The project could precipitate acts of violence against authorities by people in the affected communities.¹⁸⁹

Such events may never come to pass, and evidence of environmental scarcity contributing to conflict in urban areas other than Karachi does not necessarily imply that such conflict will reach the scale or intensity of the violence witnessed in Karachi. The particular social, economic, and political context of each case crucially determines the likelihood and severity of conflict, and environmental scarcity never represents a sole cause of conflict. In recent years a number of grassroots initiatives have emerged to provide services to communities in need. Exemplary is the Orangi Pilot Project, which has created a series of community-based organizations to improve urban services and infrastructure in Orangi Township (Karachi's largest squatter settlement).¹⁹⁰ Since its creation in 1980, the Project has evolved into a model of effective grass-roots development, with the community actively involved in the creation, financing, operation, and maintenance of an expanding sanitation system as well as housing, health, and welfare programs.¹⁹¹ The project has attracted a number of national and international donors and has led to similar efforts in other areas, including Lahore and Faisalabad.¹⁹²

Nevertheless, success stories remain few and far between, and they are in part noteworthy precisely because of their absence elsewhere. At the same time, promising official initiatives, such as the Pakistan National Conservation Strategy, confront problems of implementation due to political intransigence and lack of funds. Indeed, such realities, along with trends indicating a continuation of rapid population growth, declining resources, and rising shortfalls in services, suggest that scarcity-induced conflict - both rural and urban - will persist, if not increase, in years to come.

Much of the ethnic, communal, and class-based rivalry in Pakistan is intimately linked to the state - the manner in which it has evolved and its character, policies, and practices. Following independence, the country's leadership quickly adopted a state apparatus heavily weighted in favor of nonelected institutions and particular ethnic groups. This institutional structure, along with a pervasive lack of accountability and rampant corruption and patronage within government, progressively exacerbated regional, ethnic, class, and linguistic differences in the nation's population.

The imperatives of authoritarian central government overrode provincial rights and regional autonomy, Punjabi interests generally eclipsed those of other ethnic groups, and government elites and their supporters continually reaped the spoils of development with little regard for the needs of a rapidly growing population. Not surprisingly, political tension - in the form of regional, ethnic, and class conflicts - has long been a feature of the nation's landscape.

At the same time, certain characteristics of the Pakistani state worsened environmental scarcity, while others interacted with the resulting scarcities to produce resource capture, economic hardship, huge migrations of the poor from ecologically stressed rural areas into cities, and a weakening of the state's ability to respond to these rising challenges. The result has been an increase in group-identity and deprivation conflicts.

Ethnic and group rivalries have been increasingly urbanized, and grievances and opportunities for violence have correspondingly risen. Rival groups are increasingly pushed together in an urban context, heightening chances for interaction and intensifying competition for ever-more-scarce resources. All the while, legitimate channels for the resolution and prevention of conflict have grown weaker and weaker.

A lasting solution to this tangle of problems requires fundamental reforms to the state and its policies. In their absence, environmental scarcity will worsen and civil strife will probably increase. Scarcity could eventually become so severe that the conflict and institutional breakdown it generates become self-sustaining. In that event, the regime may try to divert attention from internal crisis by exacerbating tensions with its neighbors. Long-standing regional disputes (for instance, in Kashmir) would provide a ready pretext for such behavior. The potential dangers of such a course - for regional as well as global security - would be considerable.

The Environment, Population and Security papers are maintained by the Peace & Conflict Studies Program at the University of Toronto. We welcome your comments.

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