The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

Experts and representatives of the civil society urged the government to construct sufficient number of cyclone centres and embankments in the coastal regions and ensure maintenance of these to reduce the risk of disaster in the country.

They also urged the Government to organise discussions on climate change and implement its recommendations and set up community-based radio stations to reduce the impact of natural calamities on life and property.

They underscored the need for increasing defence and rehabilitation budgets and plantation of the trees, which can protect soil from erosion like coconut and plum trees.

The government should study the losses that may occur in the agricultural sector due to climate change in Bangladesh and guarantee alternative solutions following such disasters, speakers said.

They urged the government to stop corporatisation of agriculture, ensure preservation of local seeds and its use at government level and also increase investment in this sector.

The roundtable on 'Bali Conference on the UN's Environment Related Issues: Risk and Losses of Global Climate' jointly organised by COAST and Equity and Justice Working Group (EJWG) at the National Press Club yesterday.

Gawhar Naim Wara, President of Bangladesh Disaster Forum, Prof Dr Mehedi Ahmed Ansari, Project Director of Bangladesh Network Office for Urban Study, AHM Bazlur Rahman, CEO of Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication, among others, spoke, while Shamsudoha of EJWG, presented key-note paper.

The coastal regions occupy 32 per cent of the country's land and about 3.5 crore people live there, which is about 28 per cent of the total population. Some 54 per cent families, who are living in the coastal region, possess no usable land. Within the year 2020, population of the coastal region will reach 4.5 crore mark. As a result, the number of agriculture-based families will decrease, one of the speakers said.

At present, in Bangladesh due to global climate change, hydro-metrological disasters like drought, flood and cyclone have increased over geographical disasters like earthquake and tsunami. As a result, danger of over flooding of low land will increase by 29 per cent and sandy beaches from Cox's Bazar to Badarmokam will go under water, he added.

Land redemption is essential for facing disasters in the country. If height of the sea level increases by one metre, the total crop production of the country would be reduced from 28 to 57 per cent, speakers said.

They urged the government to decrease the use of pesticides and chemical fertilisers in agriculture and stop introduction of hybrid varieties of crops for the sake of soil fertility of the agricultural land in the country.

To face global climate change, we need effective partnership for the global carbon trade and forming an alliance among the developing countries, which would be affected by GHG, and to pressurise the industrialised countries to reduce this outflow, speakers said.