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Bangladesh: more
than just numbers
BANGLADESHI
DEVELOPMENT ECONOMIST FARHAD MAZHAR TALKS ABOUT
THE DANGER TO HIS COUNTRY FROM GLOBAL WARMING & RISING SEA LEVELS
In Chandpur, local
authorities have tried to build flood
barriers out of cheap cement blocks, mostly unsuccessfully.
It's funny because as you are talking to me the thing
that comes to mind about Bangladesh is numbers. What do I know about
Bangladesh? Well I know that occasionally you have - well there was a
cyclone in 1991, I think, in 1991, that killed about 120,000 people, or
5there was a flood in the 1970s in which 20 million people lost their
homes. So all I know about Bangladesh is just huge numbers.
Yes, yes true. But you know in 1991 the storm had that kind of impact
because they were producing the shrimp, and they cut down the mangrove
trees in the coastal area. So there was no natural barrier.
So because of the shrimp exports and the Northern consumers who love the
Bangladeshi shrimp and the cheap price - because they're not paying the
costs of these mangrove forests which people have managed for hundreds of
years. And the World Bank came and told them that the only way they could
solve their balance of payments problem was only by going into the export
of non-traditional items: shrimp, turtles, things which change everything
related to the environment.
Then not only this whole coastal area got destroyed, the whole ecological
system got destroyed because you are killing many animals and other life
forms, because you want to export to other countries to earn money to
solve your balance of payments problems.
Nobody discussed that. Everybody discussed that the floods came and people
really suffered because of the floods, but nobody discussed why.
source: www.megastories.com
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