Environmental Protection in South Asia: The Role of SAARC Initiatives

South Asia is one of the most densely populated and ecologically stressed regions on the planet. The countries here share more than borders. They share rivers, mountain ranges, monsoon systems, and a long list of environmental problems that do not stop at customs checkpoints. A flood in Nepal affects Bihar. Air pollution over Punjab drifts into Pakistan. Deforestation in one watershed silts up reservoirs in another. This shared vulnerability is exactly why the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) was expected to play a major role in environmental protection. The story of what SAARC set out to do, what it actually achieved, and why progress stalled tells us a great deal about the promise and the limits of regional cooperation.

Why environmental problems in South Asia need a regional answer 🔗

Environmental degradation does not respect political boundaries. The Himalayas, often called the “Third Pole,” feed rivers that flow through several countries, and the entire region sits under a shared monsoon system. When ecosystems break down in one part of the region, the consequences ripple outward. This is the core logic behind treating the environment as a regional concern rather than a purely national one.

The scale of the problem is significant. Researchers describe environmental degradation as an increasingly major issue across South Asia, listing air and water pollution, deforestation, ecosystem degradation, land and soil degradation, and biodiversity loss among the key concerns. The Asian Development Bank groups the region’s biggest environmental threats into four “wicked problems”: water management, air pollution, deforestation and land degradation, and climate change. These are called “wicked” because they are deeply interconnected and resist simple, one-country solutions.

The common challenges 🔗

Several environmental challenges show up again and again across the SAARC nations:

Land degradation: Unsustainable farming, overuse of irrigation water, and soil erosion are stripping farmland of its productivity. Studies note that soil organic carbon content in South Asia is declining due to extractive farming practices such as the removal and burning of crop residues, combined with accelerated soil erosion.

Deforestation: Forests across the region are being lost to agriculture, urbanisation, and fuelwood demand. This loss damages biodiversity, worsens soil erosion, and reduces the land’s natural ability to absorb carbon. Forests, mangroves, coastal zones, grasslands, and wetlands are among the most threatened ecosystems.

Water pollution: Rivers that cross multiple borders carry industrial waste, agricultural runoff, and untreated sewage. Because these rivers are shared, pollution in an upstream country becomes a downstream country’s problem.

How SAARC began addressing the environment 🔗

SAARC was established when its Charter was adopted on 8 December 1985 in Dhaka, with seven founding members: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Afghanistan joined as the eighth member in 2007. From the very beginning, “Environment, Natural Disasters and Biotechnology” was treated as a core area of cooperation.

The reason was urgent and practical. The region had witnessed a series of devastating floods, cyclones, and earthquakes during the late 1980s, and leaders recognised that these disasters were undermining the development prospects of member countries. They decided to strengthen their disaster management capabilities through collective action rather than acting alone.

The two foundational regional studies 🔗

Two early commissioned studies form the backbone of SAARC’s environmental work, and both are directly relevant to understanding the region’s approach.

The first came out of the Third SAARC Summit in Kathmandu in 1987, which commissioned a Regional Study on the “Consequences of Natural Disasters and the Protection and Preservation of the Environment.” This study was completed in 1991. It was launched partly because the region had seen a sharp rise in disasters since 1985, and the study aimed to begin the process of dealing systematically with both the causes and the consequences of natural disasters.

The second came from the Fourth SAARC Summit in Islamabad in 1988, which directed that a joint study on the “Greenhouse Effect and its Impact on the Region” be undertaken. This study was completed in 1992 and was meant to provide the basis for an action plan for meaningful cooperation among member states. Together, these two studies provided a comprehensive assessment of the state of the environment across the SAARC countries.

To move from study to action, a Technical Committee on Environment was set up in 1992 to examine the recommendations, identify measures for immediate action, and decide how to implement them. Its mandate was later expanded to include forestry as well.

Building an institutional framework 🔗

Once the studies were complete, SAARC began constructing the institutions needed to turn recommendations into ongoing work. The most important early step was the SAARC Environment Action Plan, adopted by the Third Meeting of SAARC Environment Ministers in Malé in October 1997. This plan identified the key environmental concerns of member states and set out the parameters and methods for regional cooperation.

The Action Plan provided the basis for establishing a network of specialised regional centres. Over time, SAARC created the SAARC Coastal Zone Management Centre in the Maldives, the SAARC Forestry Centre in Bhutan, the SAARC Disaster Management Centre in India, and the SAARC Meteorological Research Centre in Bangladesh. Each centre was meant to address a different aspect of the environment, climate change, and natural disasters.

Consolidation and later declarations 🔗

SAARC continued to issue statements and frameworks as global awareness of climate change grew. The Eighth Meeting of SAARC Environment Ministers in New Delhi in October 2009 adopted the “Delhi Statement on Cooperation in Environment,” reaffirming the commitment of member states to deeper cooperation. Climate change became the central theme of the Sixteenth Summit in Thimphu in 2010, which produced the “Thimphu Statement on Climate Change” and set up an Inter-governmental Expert Group on Climate Change to monitor progress.

A notable structural change came at the Eighteenth Summit in Kathmandu in 2014, when members decided to merge the four separate regional centres into a single SAARC Environment and Disaster Management Centre. The 2010 SAARC Convention on Cooperation on Environment also set out an ambitious agenda, with cooperation extending to afforestation, air quality management, biodiversity, coastal zone management, land degradation, glacial lake monitoring, river cleaning, disaster management, and waste management, among many other areas.

Why progress has been slow 🔗

On paper, SAARC built an impressive architecture of studies, action plans, declarations, and institutions. In practice, the gap between commitment and implementation has been wide. Several factors explain why concrete outcomes have lagged behind the ambitious goals.

Political tensions between members 🔗

SAARC’s effectiveness has long been constrained by political friction, particularly between India and Pakistan. Because the organisation requires consensus, bilateral disputes can freeze regional progress. Summits have been postponed or cancelled, and the SAARC process itself has slowed considerably. This is one reason India has increasingly turned toward alternative groupings such as BIMSTEC, although geography means it cannot fully ignore SAARC.

Weak follow-through on commitments 🔗

A recurring criticism is that SAARC produces declarations but struggles to implement them. The SAARC Environment Ministers, who were supposed to meet regularly to review progress, have not met since September 2011. In the area of disaster management, members adopted a Comprehensive Regional Framework for Action covering 2006 to 2015, modelled on the global Hyogo Framework. However, analysts point out that since 2015 this framework has not been renewed, suggesting a loss of initiative that has left SAARC’s disaster management work sidelined from mainstream regional efforts.

Institutional design that undercuts capacity 🔗

Some scholars argue the problem runs deeper than political will. One study of SAARC’s regime for economic integration from 1985 to 2017 found that the organisation’s stronger focus on economic integration may actually weaken its environmental policy capacity. In other words, the way SAARC is structured can crowd out sustained environmental action rather than support it.

Why the region still needs SAARC on the environment 🔗

Despite these limitations, the case for regional environmental cooperation has only grown stronger. South Asia remains extremely vulnerable to climate impacts, ranging from shrinking glaciers and water scarcity to floods and rising sea levels. Many of these impacts affect more than one country and exceed the capacity of any single national government to handle alone.

This is precisely where a functioning regional organisation matters most. Some observers suggest practical steps to revive cooperation, such as setting up a small, jointly managed climate fund to support promising projects in agreed priority areas, from regional electricity transmission lines to flood early-warning systems. The 2010 Thimphu Declaration already called for studying ways to finance low-carbon technology and renewable energy, which provides a legitimate foundation for such a fund.

The recommendations from SAARC’s foundational studies and action plans are largely sound. The real challenge is implementation. Strengthening regional environmental governance, reviving regular ministerial meetings, and following through on existing frameworks would do more for the region than drafting new declarations. Ultimately, the success of regional cooperation on the environment will depend heavily on the commitment of national ministries and agencies to make these shared commitments real.

What do you think? Given the political tensions that have stalled SAARC, should South Asian countries focus on reviving SAARC’s environmental work, or invest their energy in newer groupings like BIMSTEC? And when shared problems like transboundary river pollution clearly require collective action, what would it actually take to move from signed declarations to implemented solutions?

References

1. https://www.redaa.org/sites/default/files/documents/2023/05/Turning_the_tide_on_environmental_degradation_in_South_Asia.pdf
2. https://www.adb.org/publications/asias-wicked-environmental-problems
3. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.2489/jswc.2023.0327A
4. https://www.nyulawglobal.org/globalex/saarc1.html
5. https://www.saarc-sec.org/index.php/areas-of-cooperation/environment-natural-disasters-biotechnology
6. https://lpr.adb.org/resource/2010-south-asian-association-regional-cooperation-saarc-convention-cooperation-environment
7. https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/dilemmas-in-disaster-management-saarc-under-scrutiny
8. https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/ieaple/v19y2019i1d10.1007_s10784-018-9422-0.html
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