Sustainable environment: Challenges ahead

Pinaki Roy

In a country like Bangladesh many things are in to-do lists all of which might demand urgent attention, maybe in varying degrees. Dealing with poverty and food security, stabilization of democracy, fighting militancy, population control all are major tasks for any government of Bangladesh.

But another black cloud on the horizon is the environmental situation that Bangladesh needs to address very urgently and seriously. Improving the environmental conditions undoubtedly is the biggest challenge if we mean to leave the country livable for next generations.

Environmental degradation and depletion of natural resources are often observed in Bangladesh due to poverty. In poverty-stricken Bangladesh still around 40 percent of the people live on less than a dollar a day. For these poor people environment is not in the priority lists they consider.

Apart from environmental problems, Bangladesh also suffers from a wide range of natural calamities like drought, flood and other natural hazards because of its geographical location. Frequency of hazards is on the increase day by day, another matter of great concern.

The population of the country has been doubled since the country was independent in 1971. But country's overall environment had been ruined manifold during this time.

The quality of soil has deteriorated due to excessive use of agrochemicals, unplanned land use, undesirable encroachment on forest areas for agriculture to grow more crops to meet the demands of growing population.

In last four decades the country experienced a massive environmental degradation as different economic development activities took place here.

The old conflict between development and environment degradation is always there and now the biggest challenge for Bangladesh is to make the right choice.
Time has now come for zero tolerance in this regard.

Now Bangladesh is a name first to be uttered at any international forum as the combination of country's geographic location, climate and size of population making it a showcase of vulnerability caused by the global warming.

For Bangladesh the climate change is not a threat anymore. It is a reality here. Many say, Bangladesh has already become the showcase of impacts of climate change, the biggest challenge ever faced in the history of mankind.

The fourth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report predicted, the poorest will be the hardest hit. The climate change is already affecting the ecosystem, agriculture, fisheries, health and livelihoods of millions of Bangladeshis.

By 2050, as many as 60 million people could be affected annually by floods; 8 million by drought; up to 8 percent of the low-lying lands may become permanently inundated.

It is visible in all aspects of climate, making rainfall less predictable, changing the character of the seasons, increasing the possibility of extreme weather events like flood, cyclones to hit more often with great severity.

Still thousands of people are living on the embankment as their homestead inundated by saline water following the onslaught of cyclone Aila.

The sea level is rising. The lowest anticipated sea level rise is 40 centimeter by the end of this century which could be up to one meter or more.

A study of Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) shows yearly around .78 mm of water is increasing at the Hironpoint of the Sundarbans.

The scientists predicted, around 17 percent of the landmass in the coastal zone might be inundated by the end of this century which would make around 20 million people homeless.

Bangladesh had played very minimum role to cause the global warming with a per capita .03 tonnes of carbon emission against above per capita 50 tonnes carbon by the citizens of the developed country.

But the country is facing the climatic catastrophes severely and it is the right of people of Bangladesh to get appropriate compensations for this.

We demand compensations from the developed nations as they emitted carbon in the atmosphere and caused the global warming. But what about our practice at home? What did we do against the polluters who have polluted almost all our surface water sources by dumping liquid waste? How much the people of this country did really care about environment in last decades?

The policymakers, the politicians are need to awake up urgently. The brief descriptions of some of the environmental aspects remind us the severity of urgency in this regard.

Photo: Munem Wasif/Driknews

The polluted and dried rivers
Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) recently made a checklists of the country's rivers where they have enlisted 312 rivers.

Not very long ago, the water transport was the main mode of transport especially to carry goods. There was as long as 24,000 km of river routes in the country what comes down to 6000 km now due to loss of navigability.

Most of the rivers now are flowing through the country have lost the navigability due to sedimentation as the water flow has decreased due to extraction of water and building dams and barrages in the upstream by the Indian government from the 54 common rivers.

The decreasing of the sweet water flow in the rivers has caused saline intrusion which is already another great problem for the country's coastal area.

In the urban areas especially in the Dhaka the rivers, canals were significantly polluted in last two decades as the industrialization took place while the land grabbers filled up river and canals in and around the capital.

Industrial pollution accounts for more than 60 percent of the organic pollution load in Dhaka for unplanned industrialization clusters located along the major rivers.

The pollution is so severe in some areas that the pollutant toxic chemicals are reaching the groundwater table in some areas.

The failure of Dhaka Water and Sewerage Authorities (WASA) has induced the city dwellers to link their sanitary connection with the storm sewerage underground pipe lines resulting in the dumpling of excreta into the city rivers.

The pollution level is so severe that the Buriganga, Sitalakhya, Turag the main three rivers in the capital becomes are biologically dead during the dry season.

Forest and wildlife
The official forest coverage of Bangladesh is around 17 percent as against 25 percent, the general standard that a country should maintain. It was said in the Forestry Sector Master Plan, 1993 that says the annual deforestation rate in Bangladesh is 3 percent.

Realising the alarming situation of low forest coverage, the government has set a goal to increase the forest coverage to 25 percent by 2015.

But the achievement level was not satisfactory at all.

The total forest covers 2.52 million hectares which is 17.08 percent of total 14.75 million hectare in the country, the web portal of Bangladesh department of Forest says.

In reality the coverage has gone down to 7.29 percent (1.08 million hectares) according to a joint study by Bangladesh Space Research and Remote Sensing Organisation (SPARSO) and the Department of Forest in 2007.

The 7.29 percent coverage includes the forest of Chittagong Hill Tracts, sal forest, mangrove forest, bamboo or mixed forest and rubber plantation. The forest of Chittagong Hill Tracts and the Sundarbans cover the 2/3 of total forest coverage in Bangladesh.

How the other forests were razed to the ground in last decades for collection of timbers, cultivation and to use the forest land for other purposes is anyone's guess.

Adoption of wrong policies by the government and corruption by foresters have nearly eaten away most of the natural forests.

In addition, rubber monoculture, commercial fuel-wood plantations, grazing, urbanization, and expanding agriculture have drastically reduced Bangladesh's natural forest.

On top of habitat loss, the biodiversity of the natural forest is suffering from illegal poaching. Over the years, the wildlife of Bangladesh has been facing very dire situations as out of 140 mammals species, around 110 are endangered.

The department of forest only manages 1.52 million hectares (around 10 percent of total land mass). The rest of the forests are titled as un-classed forest .73 million hectares and village forest .27 million hectares.

Currently there are 15 national parks and 13 wildlife sanctuaries and five protected areas in the country. The Sundarbans has been recognized globally for its importance as a reservoir of biodiversity. This mangrove supports a unique assemblage of flora and fauna, including charismatic megafauna like the Royal Bengal Tiger, Estuarine Crocodile and the Ganges River Dolphin. The Sundri tree, after which the Sundarban is named, is an endemic species of this forest.

However the government is currently amending the Wildlife (preservation) order 1973.

The primary analysis of draft of the Wildlife Act (Amendment) 2010 shows it will allow the government to permit any kind of activities in the buffer zone of the forests. Another criticism is, the draft encourages to plant trees in the forest rather than protecting the natural forests and biodiversity, even in the Sundarbans.

Arsenic contamination
Groundwater arsenic contamination in Bangladesh is reported to be the biggest arsenic calamity in the world in terms of the affected population.

The people in 59 out of 64 districts comprising 126,134 square km of Bangladesh are suffering due to the arsenic contamination in drinking water. Seventy five million people are at risk and 24 million are potentially exposed to arsenic contamination. Most of the recognized stages of arsenic poisoning have been identified in Bangladesh and the risk of arsenic poisoning in the population is increasing everyday.

Waterborne diseases such as cholera are a serious threat to public health in Bangladesh. Until the 1970s, many of Bangladesh's people became sick from drinking polluted water drawn from surface rivers.

Aid agencies such as the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) built shallow wells throughout the country to help provide a safe source of drinking water to Bangladesh's poor.

In the 1990s, however, it was discovered that many of these wells were contaminated by arsenic, a poison that occurs naturally in Bangladesh's alluvial soils.

The World Bank estimates that 25 percent of the country's four million wells may be contaminated by arsenic. In 1998 the World Bank granted Bangladesh a $32.4 million credit to identify contaminated wells and develop alternative sources of safe drinking water.

Air pollution
Air pollution has emerged as a serious problem mainly in the capital. Though the gaseous pollutants have been reduced than before, the capital's air pollution level round the year remains three to four times higher than the national standard.

In every cubic metre, 65 microgram of particles of 2.5 micron and 150 microgram of particles of 10 micron are the standard levels for Bangladesh.

According to the Department of Environment (DoE), the density of airborne particulate matter (PM) reaches 463 micrograms per cubic meter (mcm) in the city during December-March period - the highest level in the world. Mexico City and Mumbai follow Dhaka with 383 and 360mcm respectively.

An estimated 15,000 premature deaths, as well as several million cases of pulmonary, respiratory and neurological illness are attributed to poor air quality in Dhaka, according to the Air Quality Management Project (AQMP), funded by the government and the World Bank.

Environment protection: Move of media and civil society
Campaign in the print and electronic media, especially on environmental issues picked up by The Daily Star spurring widespread public concern and drawing reaction at the highest political levels.

Since independence, Bangladesh has become party to most of the international treaties and conventions and also introduced many new laws at home while the country's environmental components were severely damaged.

In recent years, the government has taken some important steps towards protection of the environment, environmentally sound use of natural resources and pollution control and the country saw many success stories in this sector.

Through the media campaign in last two decades or so, the people have become aware about the environment.

The first success story was obviously banning of use, production and marketing of polyethylene shopping bags in 2002 which is considered a historic step.

The people from all walks of life have given over whelming support to implementing this ground breaking steps.

The then government also took step to control vehicular air pollution by banning plying of two strokes three wheelers in Dhaka City from January 2003.

To take prompt legal action against environmental pollution, the successive governments have taken many steps including formulating many laws to protect the forests and environment of Bangladesh.

The environmentalists pursued the government to formulate Bangladesh Environment (Preservation) Rules 1997, the umbrella law under which many new rules were formulated. Later the government made the 'Open Space and Wetland Protection Law 2000.

One of the most significant things to mention is the role of judiciary for protection of environment as the civil society moved to the court for directions towards the government to protect the environment. On the other hand, the High Court issued a suo moto rule upon the authorities concerned to protect the river specially those flowing in and around the Dhaka city.

But in most of the cases the laws were not implemented and the directions of the HC were not followed properly.

The people heaved a sigh of relief as the present government pledged to take many steps for betterment of environment, especially to save rivers after taking office. The government announced to take up a massive project to dredge all the major rivers in the country as well as massive afforestration project across the country.

Still the countrymen are waiting to see the results of those initiatives.

But the drives of the Department of Environment led by the director of Enforcement wing of the department against the polluter industries, brick kilns owners, river encroachers, sea shore grabbers and against those cutting hills clearing forests which have raised hopes in the public mind.

The writer is Deputy Chief Reporter, The Daily Star.