WB to help carry out studies for conservation of Sundarbans forest

12 May 2010, 18:00 PM

Bss, Dhaka

The World Bank (WB) will provide the government with non-lending technical assistance to help carry out various studies for conservation of the Sundarbans forest, the largest single mangrove ecosystem in the world. The project will develop a programme that will integrate prioritised interventions to address the region's main conservation and development challenges like poverty reduction, climate change adaptation and biodiversity conservation. The people of the Sundarbans surrounding areas that is known as Sundarbans' Impact Zone (SIZ) are poor, a WB spokesman told BSS yesterday. The SIZ is far behind in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and about 1.2 million people's livelihood depends on extraction of the Sundarbans' resources though settlement within the forest is prohibited. The area of the Bangladesh Sundarbans is roughly 6017 square kilometre, of which roughly 1874 square kilometre is water area and only 1400 square kilometre of the total Sundarbans forest is declared as protected area. The updated poverty map of Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) shows that at least 48 percent of the population of the upazilas surrounding the Sundarbans is below the upper poverty line. In Satkhira, the population below the upper poverty line is at least 60 percent and the low income levels in the region together with poor transport systems and challenges in providing access to income, livelihood, education and health have contributed to the difficulties of daily life in the SIZ. For their survival, many local people are left with no choice but to unsustainably exploitation of Sundarbans Reserved Forest for timber, fish, shrimp seed, and other forest produce. Sea level rise associated with the climate change and extreme weather events compound the development challenges of the Sundarbans area. Natural subsidence occurs in the area as a result of complex hydrological and soil processes and the Sundarbans area is subject to recurrent cyclonic storms and floods. Available climate change models suggest that the intensity of cyclonic storms will increase over the coming decades, threatening the existence of the Sundarbans area. A technical team of World Bank visited Bangladesh in March to discuss the draft concept note for the technical assistance. The technical assistance will focus on socio-economic development for poverty reduction in the Sundarbans Impact Zone and ensure biodiversity conservation and environmental sustainability in the Sundarbans Reserved Forest. The planned studies, which are expected to be completed by September, 2011, will include Demographic and Gender Studies; Socio-economic Development; Biodiversity Conservation and Environmental Management; Climate Change Adaptation; and Institutional Analysis.