Culture of Gilgit

vironment environmental initiative being implemented by the World Wide Fund for Nature, Pakistan (WWF-P) and in particular its Gilgit-located Regional Operations Base set out to "Save Shandur" through an environmental campaign aimed at solid waste management and conscious raising among participants, spectators and vendors. It was acting upon a PWP- sponsored landmark study done in 2006 by Oxford University scholar David Johnson regarding the environmental challenges facing Shandur.

The PWP encouraged support from the army and police, whose duties this year included cordoning off and guarding access to the lake and other environmentally sensitive areas.

The PWP got the Gilgit-Baltistan   Environmental Protection Agency (NAEPA) along with Tourism departments from both the NWFP and NAs, and non-government organizations involved in the effort. Officials of the NAs Forest Department along with their counterparts at the NWFP Wildlife Department agreed to assign four rangers to environmental check posts on the road at the two entrances to Shandur.

At the same time, the PWP drew together community organizations from both sides of the polo match's competing regions to work together for a common cause.

Particularly special help and consideration to the environmental effort was given by the officers and men of the Gilgit-Baltistan Scouts, a comparatively new paramilitary regiment made up from the corps of the old Gilgit Scouts and who were camped next to the PWP. They provided material, logistical and tactical