Sustainable Development: A Mediating Proposition between Two Paradigms Pro-Development and Pro-Environment (A case study of Balochistan, Pakistan)

Abstract

The province Balochistan is the largest one among its four provinces including the areas such as Gilgit Baltistan and FANA/PATA areas, rich in terms or having access to Arabian Sea through its coastal best i.e. Makran regions. At the same time, it’s rich in terms of having highly demanded mineral and natural resources such as Oil, Gas, Copper, Gold, Coal and many others. Despite of such richness, the masses here in the province is ranked amongst the poorest of poor. The situation in today’s globalized world due to technological advancement such as Google and AI software tools remained no more undisclosed, but open to all including economically sound countries of the Western countries and multinational national corporations MNCs for business i.e. “maximization of profit” at any costs like IMF, World Bank and Asian Development Bank through their proxies including federal and provincial government of the country. Consequently, a large number of programs and projects have since long been initiated in order to primarily justify the ruling parties governance partially and providing huge space to all such internationally recognized investors to invest to gain benefits out of the lethargic, inefficient, ineffective and somewhat indifferent governance in countries such as Pakistan including the states and provinces, which is relatively rich in term of natural resources, weak governance and somewhat already persuaded to share burden and seek financial help from abroad specially western countries and their business counterparts .China, for being, closest, friendly and economically sound country took the advantage to explore by investing billion dollars in Balochistan, only for one reason i.e. one belt and one route also called  BRI to maximize its profit and find new market for its already over produced production in almost all aspects of daily life including both necessity and luxurious items of household and economic activities of a country such as efforts are primarily aims to look into the matter and while logically and according set standards internationally and get benefitted from these mega CPEC, Gwadar Deep Sea Port, Reko Diq and Saindak Copper and Gold Mining projects were launched, however without meeting the set standards set by UN in the form of four major indicators of  “sustainable development” such as economic viability, social/ cultural acceptability, political feasibility and, indeed, environmentally friendly suitable interventions. All such mega projects do face various issues including scientific investigations. This research paper is a preliminary effort in this regard aiming to raise political and social awareness among masses in general, and concerned communities and researchers in particular.

Keywords: Sustainable Development, Economic Viability, Political Feasibility, Social/Cultural Acceptability and Environmentally Friendly, Mega Project and, Environmental Justice