Consultation Workshop: Peoples’ Plan of Action for Management of Rivers in Southwest Coastal Bangladesh

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From: <uttaran.dhaka@gmail.com>

Dear all, greetings from Uttaran! 

We have the pleasure to invite you to “Consultation Workshop: Peoples’ Plan of Action for Management of Rivers in Southwest Coastal Bangladesh”, on January 30-31, 2010, at IDRT, Uttaran, in Tala, Satkhiria. The consultation workshop will bring together community representatives from eleven river basins in southwest coastal region in Bangladesh to present findings from basin based consultation and develop a regional plan of action for community based river basin management. “Technical and scientific experts” from Centre for Geographic Information Services (CEGIS) and Institute of Water Modeling (IWM) will also join the program. 

Many of you are aware of the chronic environmental crisis of waterloging in southwest region that plagues the region for more than a decade and every year hundreds of thousands of hectares of land goes under water for five to six months creating suffering for more than half a million people and indirectly affecting million more people.  Uttaran has been working closely with communities for decades and learned that the crisis has a long history that lies in development interventions on the river system in the region, imposing engineering-structural solutions, without considering the local water and river management knowledge and practice. Structural-engineering solutions implemented by government institutions, with finance and technical advice from international lending agencies, have not solved the problem. Uttaran has been learning and advocating indigenous water and river management practices from the communities to find sustainable solution. 

It is also important to take note that the climate change will further exacerbate the situation in southwest and unless urgent action are taken, millions of people living on the river basins in southwest will suffer. Uttaran has learned from the communities that adaptation to climate change induced sea level rise and its impact on livelihood can only be found in community wisdom and indigenous water and river management practices. For years Uttaran has been working together with Paani Committee, a community forum focused on water and river management, to facilitate such a process. 

Community participation has been a jargon used  too often in development arena but allowing the communities to review problems and plan their own solutions rarely happens. Uttaran thinks that a real participatory process can function where communities are provided with adequate space to develop their own plans and proposals. In this respect, over the last few months, Uttaran, together with Paani Committee, has been facilitating a consultative process in eleven river basin in southwest to learn more about the crisis and identify environmentally sound and economically viable solutions. This workshop will be a culmination of findings from these consultations to develop a regional plan of action for community based river basin management in southwest coastal Bangladesh. 

Uttaran experience has shown that community based river basin management and climate change adaptation is inseparably linked in the context of southwest coastal Bangladesh. We appreciate your active participation in the consultation workshop.

For any further enquries please contact: <uttaran.dhaka@gmail.com>

Please visit http://riversandcommunities.wordpress.com/ for regularly updated information linking knowledge, policy and practice for community based river basin management in southwest.

You can also find us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=37069773660 

Thanking you, 

Shahidul Islam

Director, Uttaran

Consultation Workshop: Peoples’ Plan of Action for Management of Rivers in Southwest Coastal Bangladesh

Date: January 30-31, 2010

Venue: IDRT, Uttaran, Tala, Satkhira, Bangladesh

Organized by: Uttaran and Paani Committee

Description: The consultation workshop will bring together community representatives from eleven river basins in southwest coastal region in Bangladesh to present findings from basin based consultation and develop a regional plan of action for community based river basin management.

Acknowledgement: Centre for Geographical and Environmental Information Services (CEGIS) and Institute of Water Modeling (IWM)

Land remains submerged as riverbeds go higher

Tapos Kanti Das, Khulna. NewAge, May 30, 2009

Areas in the south and south-west lying lower than the sea-level may remain inundated for long, compounding the sufferings of the people, said experts and the organizations working with water related issues.
   

People affected by cyclone Aila take refuse on the ground floor of a government shelter centre intruded by flood water at Shyamnagar in Satkhira on Friday. Photo: Focusbangla/NewAge 

The areas were submerged as tidal surges whipped up as high as 13 feet by cyclone Aila, which crossed over Sagar Island into India Monday evening, fell over the land crossing the embankment.
   

Koyra, Dacope and part of Paikgachha and Dumuria in Khulna, Shyamnagar and part of Assassuni and Tala in Satkhira and part of Sarankhola, Morrelganj and Mongla in Bagerhat were worst affected. Many stretches of embankments also breached in the places, said sources in administration.
   

Sources in the Water Development Board said 48.965km stretch of embankment had been fully destroyed and 218.15km of stretch had been damaged partially in Khulna.


Water that collected during the tidal surges cannot recede as the Kapatakshi, Marichchap and Bhadra rivers, which have their beds silted over the years, were flowing above the low-lying areas in places such as Shyamnagar, Tala and Assassuni in Satkhira, Paikgachha, Koyra and Dumuria in Khulna, the Paani Committee presidentm ABM Shafiqul Islam, said.
   

He said the riverbeds are higher by one to three feet than low-lying areas in places and in other places the river bends are on a level with the low-lying areas. He said it was time the rivers were dredged lower than the low-lying areas.
   

Khulna University environmental science professor Md Salequzzaman said water had entered even the villages which had never been submerged in such cases in about 100 years.
   

He said if proper measures were not taken to flush out the water collected on the land lower than the riverbeds, a large area in the southwest, such as Bhabadaha Bil in Jessore, may remain dry permanently.
   

Salequzzaman said for water collected on the land to recede, it is imperative to drain water out of the river first.
   

In places where the river bends and the land are on a the same plane, the embankments need to be cut to allow water to be flushed out during ebb tide and then the embankments should be constructed properly, he said.
   

Shankar Kumar Das, 38, a resident of Atghara at Tala in Satkhira, said the River Kapatakshi flowing by the village had been silted up and the water collected on the land could not be flushed out as the riverbed is higher than the land. People need to wait for the sun to dry up the water collected on the low-lying areas.
   

Khulna division Water Development Board executive engineer Zulfikar Ali Hawlader said the department was taking measures to construct and repair the damaged or destroyed embankment stretchers and to flush out the water that collected on the land during the cyclone.