Bangladesh, India to work to save Sundarban forest
Date: 13-May-02
Country: BANGLADESH
"Bangladesh and India currently use different approaches to protect the same eco-system, but we are trying to unite it under one project," Professor Ansarul Karim, chairman of Bangladesh's Environmental Conservation Management Centre said at seminar in Dhaka.
Karim is also his country's coordinator for the Sundarban Biodiversity Management Project.
The U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) declared the Sundarban a world heritage site in 1997 and the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) has funded projects to save it from degradation, partly blamed on the nature and on humans. Nearly two-thirds of the 9,630 square km Sundarban lies in Bangladesh and the rest in India, stretching along the Bay of Bengal.
Sundarban is home to the endangered Royal Bengal Tigers and a number of other unique species such as the Sundari tree, which is found nowhere else in the world.
But it is facing a number of threats including illegal poaching, the felling of trees and dwindling freshwater flow, experts told a UNDP-sponsored seminar in Dhaka on Sunday.
"Sundarban's biodiversity and eco-system have been threatened by climatic changes and sea level rise, over-exploitation of resources, decrease in freshwater flow and increased salinity, oil pollution from the nearby Mongla port and top-dying disease of trees," Karim said.
His Indian counterpart Atann Kumar Raha told the seminar that "Since Sundarban belongs to India and Bangladesh and has a common eco-system ... it is not possible to maintain the system separately as deteriorating of one side affects the other."
The UNDP's deputy representative in Bangladesh, Yannic Glemarec, said a workable, coordinated approach between the two governments was crucial in order to save the Sundarban.
UNDP officials said they have procured $100,000 from the U.N. International Partnership Fund (UNFIP) and $20,000 from the UNESCO to support the Sundarban protection driveso far.
The Dhaka seminar would draw up a set of recommendations and submit it to the Bangladesh government for consideration and implementation, environment officials said.