Bangladesh Paper: Notes
Project Khulna
From Global to Local: The Challenge of Climate Change Refugees in Khulna, Bangladesh
“We are here [Tupera Taltola slum, Khulna] simply because of the flood… There was heavy rainfall. Hens, ducks, doors, furniture - everything got smashed. We were starving. We had no choice but to move… I am not sure how many families left the village, but a lot of them have done so. I may not return to the village. I have no place to live in. The house is not safe. There will be more floods in the future”. - Haowa Begum, Bangladesh (Environmental Justice Foundation, 2012)
Written by: Laura Kent (Indigenous Village Leader) , Atish Chandra(Local Citizen), Kai Ruangroj(Finance Minister), Linnea Bodegård (Human Rights Activist), Katarzyna Matysiak (Environmental Activist), Javad Ghanei (NGO Founder) & Görkem Gömeç (Engineering Consultant)
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Table of Contents
Introduction:
Action Plan
Cultural Capital: Indigenous village leader
Social Capital: NGO Founder
Physical Capital - Engineering Consultant
Human Capital: Human Rights Activist
Natural Capital: Environmental Activist and Scientist
Human Capital – Local citizen in the Khulna region
Economic Capital: Finance Minister
Character Relations
Conclusions
Global Perspective:
Introduction:
Bangladesh contributes little to global greenhouse gas emissions in comparison to the developed countries, however is one of the most vulnerable to climate change. It is situated at the intersection of three river basins and “due to flat deltaic topography with low elevation, it is prone to a multitude of climate-related events such as floods, droughts, tropical cyclones and storm surges” (Rawlani & Sovacool, 2011, p. 846). This coupled with a high population density - particularly in mega cities such as Dhaka and Chittagong - makes Bangladesh particularly vulnerable to climate crises.
Khulna city is situated in the district of Khulna; division is located in the south-west of Bangladesh; is the biggest city in the division. Today, the division of Khulna is one of the places in the world who suffers from rising sea levels as a result of global warming. Khulna division is now affected by a 5.18 mm/year rise in the sea level, however it may reach to 85 cm by 2050 in total. It is already facing severe salinity problem both in water and soil (Shamsuddoha et. al. 2007) which definitely has huge impact on the agriculture-oriented livelihoods of people in the region for instance shrimp farms will be threatened in Khulna. (Ahmed, 2006)
The main themes of this report will look at the connections between the local and global solutions and emphasise the complexity of the issue of climate change refugees in Khulna. We will see that, without global awareness of the challenges being faced in Bangladesh and global action, local solutions to will not work. The report will begin by outlining an ‘action plan’ created with the input of all our roleplay characters and will focus on local solutions and resilience as a way to reduce climate change refugees.
Bangladesh continues to be a ‘Low Income Developing Country’; poverty, population growth and political conflicts have caused lasting problems. Today however, Bangladesh needs to tackle these problems, especially in the context of climate change, and this needs to be done sooner rather than later. What does the future of Bangladesh look like?
Action Plan
Our report will focus around one solution area: local adaptations. Although we discuss many solution areas in this report, we feel local adaptations in the solution area in need of most focus. Stern (2006, pgvii) gives a strong argument as to why local adaptations are especially important in this climate change crisis; ‘Adaptation to climate change - that is, taking steps to build resilience and minimise costs - is essential. It is no longer possible to prevent climate change that will take place over the next two to three decades, but it is still possible to protect our societies and economies from its impacts to some extent - for example, by providing better information, improved planning a more climate resilient crops and infrastructure (...). Adaptation efforts, particularly in developing countries, should be accelerated’.
Therefore, to solve the problem of increasing climate change refugees and to make local communities more resilient we propose the following five steps:
1 Create workshops and campaigns to raise awareness of the obligations of developed countries.
2 Encourage research into local adaptation solutions and technologies by proposing increased financial support from governments and other aid institutions.
3 Implementation of ‘platforms’ for residents. Platforms create a space for local communities for continue traditional agricultural activities and a safer place for communities to live.
4 Create an education programme for local communities about possible new livelihood activities such as shrimp farming, goat rearing, chicken/duck farming, crab fattening, saline tolerant crops and handicrafts (Pouliotte et al, 2009, pg42).
5 Develop local institutions and NGOs that will hold the role of evaluating solutions in context specific areas, continue to develop new skills and act as a platform for different actors to come together.
Cultural Capital: Indigenous village leader
I am leader of a small community based in rural Khulna and I am worried for my village’s future. Over the last few years we have experienced devastating flooding which has damaged our homes, animals and land and led to many families moving to the big cities such as Khulna and Dhaka. I do not want anyone else from the village to be forced to move away from our lands as not only do the lands act as an important symbol to us of the past generations that have all been able to live here, but often living standards are even worse in the cities (Mega Cities: Dhaka, 2010). Therefore, I am motivated to be part of this ‘action plan’ where I can contribute understandings of cultural capital as 'traditions, customs, values, heritage, identity, and history' (Roseland, 2005, pg11).
The first way I feel I can contribute to solutions is through communication of my villages values and other understanding of local cultures. Through doing this we might be able to come up with sustainable solutions that complement more traditional, context specific aspects of our culture and lifestyle. This is important because if our values and traditions are not taken into account then many people in my village will feel the solutions are not respectful and may leave for this reason. This will be crucial aspect in step two of the action plan where solution ideas will be put forward and analysed to see whether they are worthy and viable in reality.
Another way I feel I can contribute, is by supporting my village using cultural traditions. We can find comfort in culture and this again emphasises the need for our traditions to be incorporated into any solution. Here I am arguing that cultural capital is an essential coping mechanism based on social relationships. This has also been a significant tool in dealing with our situation in the past where many families have left to go to the cities and had to deal with problems in sanitation, access to clean water, diseases and decline in well-being compared to lives here in rural Khulna (Mega Cities:Dhaka, 2010). As an indigenous leader, I wish to be particularly involved with the final action plan step: the development of local institutions and NGOs as I believe I could help set up these groups which can complement aspects of our culture and help us cope with a challenge that will continue for many years. A strong continuing relationship between the different actors in essential for me to feel valued and continue to work with the other actors in this project.
Finally, I also understand my responsibility, as an village leader, to encourage my community to be flexible, to participate in solutions and to understand our cultural livelihoods as ‘creative’ (oxford dictionary, 2012). This is emphasized in theory by Pouliotte et al (2009, pg33) who encourages 'Community-Based Adaptation (CBA), in which the participation and engagement of community members themselves is viewed as vital in determining the factors that render them vulnerable and the needs and opportunities for reducing these vulnerabilities'. One of the main problems we have faced as a community is that our grazing lands become too saline to grow feed for rearing cows or crops for our own consumption (Pouliotte, 2009). Building more ‘platforms’ is a good way for us to keep some more essential livelihood activities and is therefore a step welcomed by many people in my village. Adaptations, such as those outlined in the action plan, shrimp farming goat rearing, chicken/duck farming, crab fattening, saline tolerant crops and handicrafts, are also very necessary and valid suggestions of how we could adapt in our community and become more resilient (Pouliotte et al, 2009, pg42). Education in these new livelihoods, action plan point four, is fundamental as the villages have had little education and don’t know how to participate in these new activities. I am confident, as a village leader, that I can encourage many of the families in my community to take up these adaptations in order to save many other aspects of our culture.
Social Capital: NGO Founder
I am a NGO founder headquartered in Stockholm with offices in Khulna. I’m working on adaptation measures to mitigate climate change impacts in Khulna mainly in three sectors of education, adaptive agriculture and local participation. I think that Bangladesh due to its geographical location, high population density, high poverty rates, and the crucial role of climate on many Bangladeshi people livelihood (agriculture and fishery) is extremely vulnerable to climate change especially for women and girls. (Climate Change Cell, 2006, pp. 11, 13, 14)
According to Das, 63 million children in Bangladesh may become socially vulnerable due to climate change consequences. He lists “loss of parents and family, internal displacement, risk of being trafficked, loss of property and assets, and lack of educational opportunities” under social vulnerability.
For instance in education sector tropical cyclones from the Bay of Bengal (south of Khulna) along with storm surges have serious negative consequences on the region. The cyclone SIDR affected education of more than 100,000 children in 589 schools in 12 districts of the country.
One of my main field of activities in education sector is promoting adaptive measures through specifying school design and construction, renovating the existing schools to be more robust, making school and test schedule flexible, considering reserve teachers and educational materials, boat schools, provision of food, water and medicine stock in schools, putting climate change into curriculum of teachers and students, public awareness on the necessity of education even during the harsh climate situation. (Das, 2010, pp. 7-8) I will contribute to create an education programme for local communities; adults and children about possible new livelihood activities also in parallel with my other field of activities according to action plan.
The significance of social capital is highlighted when it comes to impacts of climate change on economic development and well-being (Adger, 2001, p. 4) in this very context, another big impact of climate change in Khulna is that the large-scale shrimp farming has been becoming less and less productive in recent years which has had huge economic impacts in the region. As an adaptive measure and with regard to this fact that Golda shrimp can be grown and rotated with crops on a small scale, following the example of the NGO NGF which introduced organic shrimp farming, supported by a German buyer, I’m advocating shrimp farming in rotation with other crops like vegetables, rice and carp (Linda Lönnqvist, et al. p. 17) and trying to market in Sweden.
There are also people in Khulna region who are especially more vulnerable than others: disabled people, Dalit (casteless) and ethnic minorities. Women in southwest Bangladesh (including Khulna) also have their specific problems. Apart from these problems and according to Lönnqvist and her colleagues, the government doesn’t properly handle the situation in Khulna.
The reason is found in the University of Khulna’s statement:” the region's political representation in central government is weak: the region is traditionally underrepresented in budgetary allocations and in influence. The southwest also has a large proportion of Hindu inhabitants – many of them disenfranchised Dalit - which reduces its influence with the Muslim majority. Some Cabinet ministers in the current government are from Khulna division but allegedly their influence is not enough to counter the long standing side lining of the region.” (Linda Lönnqvist, et al, 2010, p. 18) I will try to highlight the benefits of local participation in policy making process through lobbying with people in Dhaka.
As an NGO and in line with what I outlined my initiatives in education, agriculture and local participation sector, I admit the significance of the following measures in Lönnqvist and her colleague's work through my “Action Plan”:
● Arranging cooperation between organisations and leading networks
● Offering long-term development supports to local NGOs to be more adaptive to climate change
● Financing innovations and innovative practices.
● Sharing clear and interactive information on climate change.
● Promoting local NGOs so that to be considered in national strategies.
● Making connections between local NGOs and global strategies.
● Making connections between local NGOs and other climate change stakeholders, like national or international campaigns, academic initiatives, training courses and initiatives to promote local government coordination. (Linda Lönnqvist, et al, 2010, p. 22)
Physical Capital - Engineering Consultant
Physical capital can be explained the collection or the individual parts of material resources such as equipment, buildings, machinery and other infrastructure that can be used to produce a continuous future income. To improve the physical capital one should focus on community assets; public facilities, water and sanitation, a safe, quality housing and adequate infrastructure and telecommunications (Roseland, 2005). As an engineer consultant, I, Tony Stark, focus on an infrastructural system built to stop flooding in the rural areas of Khulna. I have graduated from MIT focusing on engineering and business, and I am in Bangladesh volunteer and an investor.
Even without climate change Bangladesh is in trouble as a result of the yearly effect of monsoonal flooding increases the run-off from the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers coming down from the Himalaya. They flood low-lying paddies for several months, sometimes years at a time and they ferry mountains of silt and sand from far away upstream (Sengupta, 2009). The sediments are mostly washed out to Bay of Bengal but and old system created by the people living by the stream, harnessing the dark and rich Himalayan sludge can create some protection against the sea level rise.
Tidal River Management (TRM) has been taking place in the waterlogged, deltaic, and low-lying areas of Khulna since 1960s under the Pakistani government, with support from the Dutch government but I want to use this system as an adaptation for climate change, and fight the risk of sea level rise. The local people used to ‘overflow’ irrigation which uses sedimentation to raise land out of the water. The technique benefits from tides themselves; they carry out sediment deposits and silt, raising the level of low-lying lands and reclaiming them for agricultural use. In order for this to happen, an area must be enclosed by the embankments. The tide is then allowed to reach as far as possible and then return to sea freely on the outgoing tide. Once the level of the land has risen another area is opened for the process to be repeated. However, the practice is still to be universally recognised and much advocacy work needs to be done before it can be tried out elsewhere(Sterrett, 2011).
The “People’s Plan” we have drafted with a wide variety of stakeholders represents the communities’ needs to restore the river and water bodies of the areas using TRM. These include: a strategic plan for TRM in the region, an inter-river linking network, revival of so-called ‘dead’ rivers, and management of canals and waterlogged areas inside permanent embankments. The benefits of the TRM system include, the formation of new alluvial land in tidal wetlands as a result of sediment deposits, more conservation of bio-diversity and a return to more ecological balance, enhancing livelihoods through agriculture and fisheries; square ponds to cultivate fish and shrimp and mitigation of climate change induced by sea level rise if sea level rise is kept under 1m or so (Sterrett, 2011).
I also notice that this new embarked land is sometimes found to be too muddy and slushy for people to safely live on, and the force of the Himalayan rivers can be powerful enough to wash away newly gained land (Lönnqvist, et al., 2010). There has been also cases where, TRM used illegally to create freshwater ponds or reclaim farmland, these are “leased” from the District Commissioner – a practice which the low accountability of government officials. The illegal activities also include cutting down the stabilising trees from the banks. These trees, which are very important to rehabilitate existing river flood embankments so that they are fully functional and able to provide the level of security for which they were constructed.