Unconventional threat

Environmental problems faced by Bangladesh are far too many though largely caused by factors, which are teleological because of its geographical position. These include, deforestation of the Himalayas, rise in the sea level due to Global Warming, sharing river waters with India (54 rivers are shared between the two neighbours) Floods, tornadoes, droughts, water and soil quality and waste dumping. All these act as ecological threat to the environment in Bangladesh.

Earth Bound Wastes
Seas and rivers have too often been used as free waste Repositories, and refuse from firms; farms and houses have often been dumped in fresh and salt waters. This wastes disposal has led to serious problems especially in Bangladesh. This waste disposal has led to serious pollution. For e.g. Bay of Bengal has been used as a convenient dumping ground for industrial and toxic wastes by foreign countries.

Now lead and Cadmium are said to cause brain damage and affect growth among children. And had the toxic been actually used as a fertiliser, it would have got into the food cycle and needless to say what havoc it would have created. Bangladesh for that matters lacks proper monitoring mechanism, nor does it have a trained Navy and Air Force, or the material to deal with the wastes dumped in the waters.

International conventions do exist that ban toxic waste dumping, like the Basel Convention Adopted in 1989, The Bamako Convention 1991, etc. But these conventions are by no means a foolproof in preventing hazardous waste dumping. It is time Bangladesh should realise that it lacks suitable legislation and also adequate environmental laws to deal with the situation of today, the sooner the government realises the better it is. Such wastes threaten not only the health of the Bangladeshi's but endanger wild life and the natural environment and may even jeopardise the global temperature control system. Aside from these dangers, wastes and pollution pose a growing economic problem: the costs of pollution control are rising and the price of dumping can be expected to rise steeply. Waste endangers our health and our Wealth.

Global warming and floods
Bangladesh, like any South Asian country cursed with monsoon floods and tornadoes. Bangladesh being close to the sea bears the brunt directly. Incalculable damage is done to agriculture caused by annual recurrence of floods. In 1988 monsoon floods in Bangladesh killed several thousand people, levelled 2 million homes, devastated 4 million acres of cropland and cost the impoverished nation US $ 1.5 billion. Nature it seems had declared war on Bangladesh. The world's attention was drawn towards Bangladesh after these devastating floods. The year 1990 was declared as the " Year Of Environment" and the 1990's as the "Decade of Environment". A draft environment policy was also prepared in 1990, with one of the first priorities being spreading awareness among the people. Floods affect 18% of the total land area. There have been at least 14 devastating floods in the last 40 years. Droughts too have taken their! toll . The longest was in 1989, which caused a reported loss of 2.5 million people in terms of loss of lives and spiralling prices3.

Global warning too would affect Bangladesh tremendously. Bangladesh centre for Advanced Studies conducted a recent survey and they made the following results: 1) Bangladesh is witnessing rise in sea level; 2) 11% of the population will be displaced by the effect on the Bangladesh's coasts; 3)The complete inundation of 17.5% of the total land area; 4) A decline of 13% in the GDP owing to losses to agriculture and hence a further fall in the per- capita income; 5) Affect the major port of Mongla, some 85 cities and towns, more than 800kms of roads and 4,200kms of coastal embankment; 6) The extinction of the sunder bans one of the worlds largest mangrove forests, covering 5,770 sq. kms. To abate the crisis Bangladesh would need to embank 715 km of coastal island perimeters, 370km of coastline and 7600 km of riverbanks. This would cost US%10 Billion, which Bangladesh doesn't have. Paying for this cost inevitably means further indebtedness.

The ecological hazards of pollution and resource depletion pose a potentially catastrophic threat to Bangladesh. The present Bangladesh government should take the environmental threats seriously, and create public awareness and citizen action oriented programmes, in fact Green ideas should be taken to the Polls and efforts should be on to create a green political ideology.

Courtesy: South Asia Analysis Group