The British American Tobacco Biodiversity Partnership (BATBP) and Pakistan Tobacco Company (PTC) are committed to assess threats to biodiversity and opportunities for corrective actions in the tobacco growing areas of Pakistan. BAT as a policy decision has taken the initiative to integrate biodiversity into its strategic and operational management system.

This workshop was a ground breaking activity in our leaf growing operations and embedded sufficient learning among the participants, leading to comprehensive Biodiversity Risk and Opportunity Assessment (BROA), and highlighting further enhanced efforts to mitigate the threats to Biodiversity - as it is very crucial for our reputation and sustainability of access to raw materials.

Overall 25 participants attended the workshop. In addition to the members of the leaf management team, EHS Managers (Head Office and both the factories), CORA and Product representatives also participated in the workshop.

Participants Group Photograph

BAT Biodiversity Partners supported the event; representatives from Earthwatch Institute in the UK provided assistance/guidance, and CABI South Asia, a lead organization with rich experience in the field of agriculture and forestry, was asked to provide support for capacity building and conducting the field assessments.

CABI South Asia has wide and long experience of developing, implementing and managing projects in the field of Agriculture and Forestry in Pakistan and has been supporting initiatives both in the conservation of biodiversity and reducing the impacts of global climate change.

The objectives of the workshop were:

• Sensitize the PTC leaf team with the concept of biodiversity associated risks, the assessment process, and the company’s stance on biodiversity.
• Capacity building of leaf team in relation to biodiversity risk assessment.
• Develop common understanding over “know-how” and “do-how” concept, field assessment and action plan development.

This workshop was conducted through the participatory learning and interactive methodologies which included:

• Power Point presentations followed by facilitated discussions
• Group work, a vital component of the workshop, including follow up presentation on the group assignments (which in turn generated further discussions in the broader forum)
• Group dynamic exercises, energizers and ice-breakers

For field survey and the risk assessment exercise, the following tools were used:-

• Pre-existing Information
• Observations
• Semi Structured Interviews
• Focused Group Discussions (FGD)
• Village Resource Mapping
• Transect Walk
• Community group work and presentations

These tools were used to clarify the concept, give insights about field assessment and for action plan development.

Throughout the workshop BATBP biodiversity materials and resource literature such as Social Responsibility in Tobacco Production (SRTP), Best Practice guidelines, BATBP presentations and Biodiversity Risk Assessment Maps were made available to provide a structure and framework for conducting this workshop. Facilitators provided technical support during the survey. The following formed the key outputs/observations:-

• Each group enthusiastically sought the required information during the FGD
• It was observed that occasionally some participants tried to dominate the FGD, which normally happens in rural community while conducting such exercises.
• It was also observed that the group that exercised the transect walk and village resource map came up with more evidence of the findings. That also helped them to triangulate their findings.
• It was hard to develop the concrete relationships between the causes and effects of the biodiversity losses because the rural community was not fully aware of the biodiversity and its impact on the provision of ecosystem services to the rural livelihood.
  

Javed Rasool led the PTC BROA and is now regional coordinator for Biodiversity Risk & Opportunity Assessments across the Asia-Pacific Region.