“I have sent a proposal to the Dr Hasan Mahmud, Minister for Environment, Government of Bangladesh. I am confident and optimistic that we will launch the forum in September this year," said Ramesh, while addressing an international workshop on “Climate threat to Sunderbans across India and Bangladesh" in the city. The forum will work in areas of mangrove protection, tiger protection and building embankments. Ramesh said that experiences like Aila has proven that the initiatives so far taken to combat climate change are not correct and that the government will have try “something new".
The Sanctuary View: Plans to invest hundreds of crores of rupees in building bunds and cement constructions in the Sundarbans would be the greatest mistake anyone could possibly make because climate change is going to make it impossible to keep people safe from wind and water no matter how high or strong we build the bunds. Apart from this, just salinisation alone will render the vast majority of crop fields useless. How will people feed themselves, with or without bunds?
We need to invest money is creating housing for people who are willing to move out of the Sundarbans in an orderly fashion. The option is anarchy, social unrest and mayhem when an unplanned exodus that will overwhelm cities such as Kolkata -- triggered by cyclones, salinisation and food shortages -- takes place. At this point, not only the people of the 24 Parganas, but millions from Bangladesh will also stream into India. We will have no capacity to deal with the crisis, about which we had been warned, but chose to ignore the signals. On the sidelines of this human tragedy is the fact that starting NOW, people whose lives have been distrupted in the Sundarbans will try to buffer their trauma by invading the core areas of the Sundarbans Tiger Reserve. This will put paid to any fond hope that "the Sundarbans tigers will be more secure than others on the subcontinent" -- an idea that has been erroneously floated for decades. Ed.
