Editorial
Our dying rivers
We must protect the lifeline of the nation
Experts on the environment have urged the government to form a single national river authority under a stringent law to save the country's rivers. Risks to our rivers as identified in a report on the protection of rivers, recently shared at a press conference held on the subject, include the decrease of water level and water flow, river pollution, filling up of rivers, erosion of banks, river grabbing and construction of illegal structures in their places. According to experts, all these problems are created by people with vested, selfish, and commercial interests and the law must be designed so as to deal with these issues and those responsible for them. The issue of India's projects on river-linking and Tipaimukh dam and China's plan to build a dam on the Brahmaputra River were also raised by experts.
For Bangladesh, its 73 rivers are the lifeline of the nation and the death of rivers, as is increasingly becoming imminent, would mean death of the people as well as the nation itself. While we have incorporated protection of the environment into the most recently amended version of the Constitution, we are doing little to translate the commitment into action. The authorities must take quick and stern measures against those contributing to the destruction of our rivers in particular and the overall environment in general by drawing up and implementing stringent laws. Many of our environmental concerns, which may seem natural, are in fact man-made. As it is, we are one of the most vulnerable nations in the world in terms of the impact of global warming and climate change. We must do everything we possibly can to protect our environment and our people from man-made as well as natural disasters.
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