Grazing in Reshun pastures banned

CHITRAL, July 17: The deputy commissioner Chitral has imposed a ban on grazing of goats in the pastures of Reshun village for a period of 60 days to protect the public and the private properties from torrential floods. The order issued here on Thursday says that the overgrazing of goats in the pasture was causing torrential floods in the summer season and the village constantly faced the danger every year. Earlier the local court had also decreed the ban of grazing of goats on the petition of the villagers who prayed the court to save their lives and properties from the floods which was the outcome of grazing by some villagers. The court order banning the grazing of goats in the pastures of Reshun and adjacent villages of upper Chitral has caused contentment to the people as the grazing had caused a series of torrential floods which swept away the villages. Former nazim of Charun union council Amirullah Khan said the villagers had moved the local court demanding ban on grazing of goats in the pasture as it posed a potential danger to the lives and landed properties in the form of flood. He said that a very small fraction of the village population defied the majority and grazed the goats in the village pasture and the herd of more than eight thousand heads destroyed the herbs rendering it vulnerable to torrential floods. Mr. Khan said that the floods had become frequent while last year the flood swept away the village transversally as a result of which the truck able suspension bridge collapsed, four persons died, sixty families were rendered homeless, hundreds of acres of maize crop and fruit gardens were inundated by the mud. He recalled that in the summer season from the month of June to August, a torrential rain of only half an hour caused flood and the people residing the stream side migrated to the places of higher altitude to save their lives. He said the village consisted of about seven hundred households out of which about twenty households kept and grazed goats and invited the herdsmen from the other villages enhancing the strength of grazing goats.–Zahiruddin]]>