COMMEET
Environmental Destruction in Bangladesh. The Killing of Mangroves on Sonadia Island.
Who am I and what have I done?
My name is Philip Gain and my story is a horror story about the villagers on Sonadia Island, one of the places where I have been working for 35 years. In line with COMMEET´s principles I have been working to establish a resource centre for the excluded communities of Bangladesh. I founded the Society for Environment and Human Development (SEHD) in 1993 and have been working full-time with the organisation to date. As an adjunct faculty member at Independent University (IUB) in Dhaka I also teach environmental communication, development communication and advanced reporting.
What is the context?
We are on Sonadia Island, off the south-western coast of Moheshkhali in Cox’s Bazar, a place where a thriving mangrove ecosystem is being reduced to a wasteland before our eyes. Mud dykes have been built along the riverbanks, with sluice gates installed at intervals of a few hundred yards to allow saline water to enter. These structures are designed to retain saline water within compartments for cultivating tiger prawns destined for export to high-demand seafood markets in the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, China, Japan and Canada.
The result is horrific. Thousands of acres of mangroves have been wiped out. Across the landscape, fresh scars mark where trees were recently felled and burned. Trunks, branches and twigs lie strewn in every direction. Newly raised mud dykes, four to five feet high, cut through land that only days, months or a year ago was covered with dense mangrove vegetation. On Sonadia Island the indiscriminate felling of trees is reminiscent of the haunting tableaus in Roland Joffé’s 1984 film The Killing Fields.
What are we up against?
Over 21,000 acres of land were transferred in lease to the Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority (BEZA), including Ecologically Critical Areas (ECAs), in the government’s drive to expand tourism and establish special economic zones. Since the transfer, however, power appears to rest not with institutions but with those who command muscle and fear. The transfer has actually opened the door to further widespread encroachment. Sadly, once land is encroached upon and gangsters take control, there is hardly anything we can do. Local residents could and can do little more than watch helplessly, and this continues to this day.
What is next?
The situation poses a critical question for the state: is it genuinely committed to protecting nature from organised crime and politically connected groups that continue to destroy the natural shield of this emerging island? It also poses an ethical question to shrimp buyers: should you still be buying when you know that this destroys vital, fragile ecosystems?
We want to keep supporting the struggle of the communities to save their ecosystem and resolve land disputes. We want the Forest Department to regain control, reopen its offices and reintroduce patrols on Sonadia. We also have to keep writing about the catastrophic developments in the mangroves and keep knocking on the doors of government and courts. If the government can evict the prawn cultivators who have destroyed the mangroves, there is still hope that these forests can recover, just as we hope to restore the mangroves of Chakaria. If you are interested in this specific project of a COMMEET Fellow, or in the work that we are doing in Bangladesh, please get into a conversation with me:
Philip Gain, COMMEET Fellow
https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-gain-86b4863b/
philip.gain@gmail.com
I really look forward to talking to you. And if you like what you hear, please feel free to make a labelled donation here already towards our valuable work in Bangladesh.
