A proposal to declare May 24 as the International Day of the Markhor was approved by the UN General Assembly on Thursday. Pakistan and eight other nations sponsored the resolution.
Given the Markhor’s importance to the ecosystem as a whole, the resolution calls for its global observation as well as the thoughtful consideration of strengthening regional and global collaboration in support of conservation efforts.
The Markhor, commonly referred to as the “screw-horned goat,” is the national animal of Pakistan.
The resolution requests that the International Day of the Markhor be observed with assistance from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). The Markhor is a well-known and ecologically significant species that may be found across Central and South Asia’s hilly areas, as the text emphasizes.
It acknowledges that protecting the Markhor and its natural environment is both a critical ecological need and a big chance to support local businesses, encourage conservation activities, and advance sustainable tourism and economic development.
Markhors are found in Pakistan in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), in the areas of Chitral, Kohistan, and Kalam; they are also found in the regions of Gilgit-Baltistan, Balochistan, and portions of Azad Kashmir.
Once thought to be in danger of going extinct, markhor populations have progressively grown, more than tripling in the last few decades, with a notable rise since 2014.
For the past ten years running, the population of long-horned wild goats has increased.
In a media interview, Saeed Abbas, an International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) representative in Pakistan, was cited as saying, “The population of the Markhor has been increasing with an annual ratio of 2% since 2014.”
