Wed 21 Feb 2007
Bangladesh: At the mercy of climate change — Justin Huggler in the Independent (UK)
The trees in the Sundarbans have suddenly started dying. And not just that: they have started dying in a way nobody has seen before, from the top down. Nobody is sure what the cause is, but the country’s leading scientists think the trees are dying because, in recent years, the water has turned from fresh to salty. The Sundarbans is a massive mangrove swamp, and the sea has begun encroaching. What we are seeing may be one of the first casualties of rising sea levels caused by global warming.
Climate change laps at Bangladesh’s shores — Henry Chu in the Los Angeles Times
Global warming has a taste in this village. It is the taste of salt. Only a few years ago, water from the local pond was fresh and sweet on Samit Biswas’ tongue. It quenched his family’s thirst and cleansed their bodies. But drinking a cupful now leaves a briny flavor in his mouth. Tiny white crystals sprout on Biswas’ skin after he bathes and in his clothes after his wife washes them.
Bangladesh faces bleak future from global warming — Anis Ahmed in Reuters
Every year, St. Martin’s island in Bangladesh gets a little smaller. The storms that batter its fragile shores are becoming increasingly severe and more and more coral is lost to the waves. Local council chairman Moulvi Feroze Ahmed doesn’t know much about global warming or scientists’ dire predictions for the fate of low-lying Bangladesh. But he fears for the future and the livelihoods of thousands of people on Bangladesh’s only coral island. “No one has ever told my people what awaits them in 50 years or a century. But I have seen the island gradually reduced to a size of 8 sq-km (3 sq miles) now from 12 sq-km 20 years ago.”
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Recently, a series of high profile documents have firmly focused the global community’s attention on the issue of climate change. Among the most notable are the IPCC report, the Stern report and the documentary movie by Al Gore. Bangladesh is literally on the frontline of this disaster, and this aspect of our future is drawing more and more concerned attention from the international media. But what is our local media doing in this regard to raise awareness? What is our intelligentsia and civil society doing to promote remedial or adaptive measures? We have very little room for complacency; even if the Western world would be happy to kick this ball down the road to deal with in some unspecified future, Bangladesh can’t afford that luxury. For us, the future is already here.
The lowest estimate I have come across so far for the number of environmental refugees is 13% of the population - about 20 million people. More common estimates are between 30 million to 40 million people, those who will lose their lands and livelihoods in a number of different ways over a period of time - through soil erosion, salinity of land and water, loss of agricultural land, ferocious cyclones and tornadoes, etc. If responses are not planned in advance, this will be the greatest disaster in our history. We already have a long and illustrious history of calamities and natural disasters behind us: famine, cyclones, Biblical floods (also BNP and Awami League). But compared to what’s coming ahead, everything else in the past could look pretty pale indeed…
February 21st, 2007 at 1:55 pm
Zubaer,
Thanks for this - the consequences of the rapid increase of global warming on BD, and especially on its low-lying deltaic or southern region, is just unbelievably dire..
However, the author forgets to add two other reasons for the death of certain mangroves in the S’bans:
1) tectonic movements between the twelfth to the sixteenth century initiated a west-to-east tilting of the Sundarbans landmass causing the greater part of fresh water to be diverted towards the east – this is why, for example, there are no sundri trees left in WB or that the BD part of the S’bans more diverse and beautiful than its WB counterpart.
2) The impact of the Farakka dam – has diverted a lot of the fresh water coming from the Himalayas into the WB part of the S’bans and has had an impact on the increased salinity of the rivers and therefore the soil of the region.
And of course, the growing brackishness of rivers is a direct threat to the livelihood of those who depend on the rivers as it means a significant decrease in crab, prawn, fish and certain types of wood.
Small factual error: Huggler talks of dykes made of boulders but actually they are made of mud, they are actual mud walls and are called ‘bund’ in English from the Bamgla word bandh.
What I always feel amazed by when I raise these issues with Govt officials whether in BD or in WB is the non-chalance they have to that region – one where some of the poorest of South Asia live.. just an example: I was in the WB S’bans when a super cyclone was announced coming our way in Nov 1999. All the WB Govt did was send 3 launches to the most well endowed island, letting every other place to fate. The cyclone did not strike southern Bengal but Orissa instead and 20,000 were killed. The woman in whose hut I lived killed her goat and organised a big feast for the family - ‘it may be our last meal, we might as well die on a full stomach’ she said as she cooked away while the sky was growing dark and the waters rising.
The author ends with the fact that London is the same height above sea level as most of BD. However, it will never face the kind of cyclones or tsunamis South and South East Asia are subjected to practically every year. Also, our Govts are hopeless when it comes to disaster management. This is why I found the BD high Commissioner’s piece hopeful (http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article2283916.ece) finally some officials raising concern over this!
February 22nd, 2007 at 6:04 am
Climate change as an issue must come out of the ghetto of “environmental problems” to take a centre stage as a major “development problem” in Bangladesh.Our govt. is definately hopless in disaster management area which is causing millions of poor people to suffer at present let alone the more deadly threat in future.I guess they should set up a major national awareness building program. This would play an important role on many different levels from the general public, scientists, local government to NGOs, local farmers and policy makers.All levels have their own information and requirements that needs to be coordinated to create a sustainable development planning strategy.This would also enhance Bangladesh’s role in international negotiations, mitigation and adaptation.
February 22nd, 2007 at 12:36 pm
The ‘Daily Star’ has an article today ‘A Mangrove Forest in Death Throes’ (http://www.thedailystar.net/2007/02/22/d7022201011.htm) on how shrimp farmers and their goons are deforesting entire tracts of forest land in Cox Bazar. The Forest Department seems unble to do anything to stop this..
February 23rd, 2007 at 12:48 pm
Please be careful when referring to numbers, numbers which are calculated by taking the direst prediction and then colouring the contour map of bangladesh. Its not simple maths and its not fair to the physics.
Bangladesh, specifically the lives of the poor people there is often used as a test bed for ‘global piety’ paradigms, development, climate change, disaster. Theres politics in that which need to be picked apart.
I hope that the BWDB and related agencies including the River Research Institute figure out how we can use the sediment running through our river system for our advantage. Its a huge challenge, something to encourage/depress the young with.
Thats one of the reasons id put lots more money into the more creative parts of these institutions. We cannot rely on anyone other than ourslves to solve this, its about us and what our culture can respond with.
There should be help directed towards Orissa and west bengal fro the bangladesh end. I guess that there would be *ishoos* of maybe the govt their has learnt some lessons. Disasters and hazards really provide a prism to see who gives a stuff and who knows their stuff.
Foresty is a department with no power.
Tulip, sorry to spin this back, but the govt is quite good at the stuff its got used to managing, flood and famine. Cant depend on government, they have too much else to do. Unless us armchari wallas go and get busy with some BCS exams.
February 28th, 2007 at 8:22 am
Another important article
March 12th, 2007 at 6:27 am
and here’s a bleak article in today’s Daily Star based on a World Bank report - http://www.thedailystar.net/2007/03/12/d7031201128.htm - on environmental damage costing BD’s GDP 4%!! ‘Environmental factors cause as much as 22% of deaths and diseases’..
March 12th, 2007 at 7:24 am
Funny article by the bbc, but based on a very important conference, one that stressed adaptation.
I was with the groups that went on the field visit to gaibandha and bogra to look at river erosion. The author staged that picture, there was no gardener around at the time.(wrong season for it, the garden was just *parked*) You might not think there was anything wrong with that, but i wanted you to know how the shaping occurs right from the very beginning.
Funny how none of the scientists present would attribute erosion to climate change. There was lively debate about this. The long localised history of erosion and deposition is such that its extremely difficult to tell. to the man on the bankside however its climate change and his land is still going.
Another thing, the technology on display was not ‘new’ as such, floating gardens are common in other parts of the country and those stoves arent such a big deal. It is hard to cross reference when you are after a good story in an exotic location.
Some things get perverted in translation, for example there were ads on the back of ricksaws going on about how the stoves were important because they reduced green house gases. Nowhere in the sane world are the poor countries, especially the poor in the poor countries required to reduce their carbon output. The journalists and ngo workers didnt pick this up nor think it important. We should be interested in initiatives, rather than contrived development programming, which is good in itself.
Annu,
When is an environmental a social negligence factor?
September 24th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
Dr F’s statement
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