Culture of Gilgit

That was until the 1980s, when the federal government started supporting polo at Shandur on a large scale, and things began growing from there. Nevertheless, things still were, and are, kucha at best. Players and mounts live in and around tents with the Chitral team on one side of the border, the Gilgit-Baltistan   team on the other. Players and their mounts are still made up of the region's elite, some of whom are the best players in the country and perhaps the world.

The 1990s saw prime ministers, including the late Benazir Bhutto, flying in by helicopter for the last day's main event and during the early 2000s the road between Gilgit and Shandur was paved and from Chitral to Shandur partially paved.

People then began loving Shandur to death. The now-comparative ease of access saw an increase in the numbers of both spectators and sellers, and also an increase in indifference to the environment. Solid-waste management, water pollution and erosion problems manifested themselves in a very big way. Vehicles, horses, clothes, crockery and cutlery, and people were all being washed in the fragile lake complex. The mountain of trash and difficulties managing it grew.

Going on the environmental offensive, this year the 18-month-old Pakistan Wetlands Programmer (PWP), a seven year long Ministry of