Water in the Wilderness: Life in the Coast, Deserts, and Mountains of Pakistan

The book aims at highlighting the seamless beauty, culture, flora and fauna of Pakistan. The central message of Water in the Wilderness is that economic growth, with its zeal for modern transformation, may cause the loss of ancient and fragile fusions that form the people and nature of Pakistan – a region at the crossroads of civilization.

Beyond the central plains of the River Indus there are places in Pakistan on which little is known or written. Fragile freshwater areas of lakes, saltpans and rivers are where nature and people live as they have for centuries in unbroken continuum. While modern outlooks fail to recognize their value, these places remain unique hybrids of the East and the West that are hallmarks of Pakistan.

Using unpublished scientific findings, firsthand travel, and English language historical accounts, the book takes the general reader close to rare destinations. New scientific information commonly relegated to specialists is woven into the text to deepen insight into geography, wildlife and culture of Pakistan. Local attempts to understand and shape the future are brought into focus, through four years of extensive field trips, as entire landscapes and cultural identities are transformed. Imaginatively written text is accompanied by art quality photographs exclusively commissioned to illustrate the storyline. A special feature of the book, are essays written by scholars from neighbouring countries that highlight the remarkable similarities from across borders.

The chapters are organized around three sections: Makran Coast; Central Deserts; and the Northern Mountains of Pakistan. Each chapter tells its own story around a particular region on which little has been written or known. For example, Hingol in the Makran Coast, that contains Hinglaj, an ancient Hindu nature temple where Hindus and Muslims congregate; Lungh an ox-bow lake in the old bed of the Indus, a favoured staging site for thousands of migratory birds; and the breathtaking Deosai plateau in the northern areas, one of the largest plateaus in the world. An essay from Siberia tells the story of Katerina, an endangered species of stork, whose radio tracker shows how, if she made her safe passage to Lungh, she would not have been shot on the banks of the Indus in the tribal areas.