Raja Waseem Ahmed, a dedicated activist in Pakistan’s Chakwal district, is well-known for his decades-long fight to conserve the natural resources and heritage of the Kahoon Valley.Through the Kahoon Protection Committee, he led a legal battle against mega cement factories, ultimately prompting the Supreme Court of Pakistan to issue a historic ruling that banned the corporations from extracting local groundwater.His persistent advocacy against unchecked industrial expansion recently earned him the WWF-Pakistan Al-Mizan Award for Environmental Justice.Raja Waseem Ahmed spoke to Mongabay about his work and steps needed for using the judicial system to safeguard the region’s environment.
For generations, the Kahoon Valley in Pakistan’s Chakwal district in northwestern Punjab has thrived as a rich ecological haven. Its fertile soil has yielded lush, historical loquat orchards, while the surrounding scrub forests have provided vital refuge to diverse wildlife, including local peacock populations and rare mountain deer species.
At the center of this landscape sit the Katas Raj Temples, an ancient Hindu pilgrimage site anchoring the region’s profound spiritual heritage. However, the unchecked expansion of mega cement factories in the early 2000s transformed this natural sanctuary into a toxic industrial zone. Relentless industrial pumping reportedly caused the water table to crash from 36 meters (120 feet) to 122 m (402 ft). This extreme depletion withered the famous loquat trees and displaced native birds, also draining the sacred Katas Raj pond.
