Global warming is an ever-growing concern worldwide, especially in low-lying coastal regions where any rise in sea level will have a direct impact. Bangladesh is one of the 10 countries most vulnerable, as most of its land is less than 12m above sea level.

It’s predicted the sea level will rise up to 30cm by the year 2030, and may reach 110cm by 2100. A one metre rise in the Bay of Bengal would result in a loss of about 10 per cent of the country’s land.

Bangladesh is one of the most populous countries in the world, with a population of around 150 million and a population density of 1045 per sq km.

That’s 150 million people squashed into a country smaller than Tasmania. Land is therefore a major source of conflict.

The proportion of landless people is increasing, with nearly 50 per cent of rural households effectively landless and forced to colonise marginal areas, including the chars.

Chars are large sandbank river islands that were once part of the mainland.

There are hundreds of chars in Bangladesh’s rivers but their numbers and positions change with the processes of silting and erosion.

An estimated 6½ million people – more than 4 per cent of the Bangladeshi population – live on the chars or in associated erosion- and flood-prone areas.

An even further disadvantage, Bangladesh is on the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta, making it subject to annual monsoon floods, cyclones, tornadoes and tidal bores.

Cyclone Sidr, which hit on November 15, 2007, caused the deaths of more than 3300 people and 1.8 million livestock.

More than 3.2 million people were displaced and at least 750,000 homes destroyed.

Seasonal flooding also has increasingly devastating effects on the country each year, the floods being more prolonged because the higher sea level delays drainage.

The raised sea level is also creating wider and deeper waterways.

Any loss of land through flooding or a rise in sea level will reduce agricultural potential, increase population density and put immense strain on the people of Bangladesh.

Flooding, which can also cause catastrophic landslides, results in hundreds of deaths each year.

Even with assistance from the experienced Dutch, who are helping to devise a strategy to cope with the rising water levels, the question remains whether or not Bangladesh will have the capacity to develop and apply the appropriate technology.

In the past 20 years the rivers in Bangladesh have been increasingly savage.

The Jamuna River, with its erosion-prone banks, has swollen and changed course, drowning some char lands and creating new ones from the mainland.

When the char dwellers’ makeshift villages are flooded and disappear, they pack up and move to another sandbank.

This process of migrating pushes them deeper into poverty as each time they are forced to leave any established crops and start again.

Only 40 per cent of the chars in the Jamuna River last for more than six years, so inhabitants of the other 60 per cent have to migrate at least once every six years.

It’s not unusual for adults in the Jamuna River region to have moved six to 10 times.

The extreme poverty of the char lands and their poor access to services are symptomatic of there being no government strategy, policy or plan aimed at focusing on or addressing the specific needs of the char inhabitants.

In fact, Bangladesh’s general development has been marred by political turmoil since its independence from Pakistan in 1971, with 14 different heads of government and at least four military coups.

Generally, only the bigger, longer lasting chars have decent facilities such as schools, markets and tea houses.

The smaller chars can’t afford these luxuries, as their future is so uncertain.

Many char dwellers are forced to travel to the mainland once or twice a week to trade goods and to purchase essential supplies.

When a char-dwelling family loses its land to erosion and has to move to a different area, it will often end up with less land.

Char dwellers are therefore forced to abandon some of the more traditional work, such as growing crops and producing jute, an important fibre in Bangladesh.

Instead, they might take up fishing as a means of work and to produce the food they need to survive.

However, they say the rivers seem to be carrying less and less fish each year, perhaps a result of the excessive demands Bangladesh’s population is placing on the country’s natural resources.

COOL SOLUTIONS

Everyone is responsible for the environment.

Your daily choices do make a difference to the people of Bangladesh and to the rest of the world.

Every time you flick a switch, drive a car or get a plastic shopping bag, you’re contributing to global warming.

At the UN’s Climate Change Conference in Bali in December 2007, the Bangladeshi delegation, led by Dr Chowdhury Sajjadul Karim, Minister for Environment and Forests, pressed the case for industrialised countries agreeing to cut their carbon emissions by

25 to 40 per cent in the next 15 years and for all countries agreeing to a binding obligation to reduce emissions.

The delegation also voiced the need for new funding streams to help them adapt to the effects of climate change.

“An internationally created problem like climate change demands an internationally supported sustainable solution for those worst affected, as in Bangladesh,” says Dr Fakhruddin Ahmed, head of the caretaker government of Bangladesh.

Oxfam Australia’s climate policy advisor Charlotte Sterrett says poor countries need $57 billion per year to adapt to global warming, adding, “We believe the rich and the most polluting countries should pay the vast share of that money.”

“Measures such as shelters, early warning systems or adequate housing can make a big difference in keeping life and livelihood,” says Masud Akbar, a relief worker in Bangladesh.

“The 70 cyclone shelters saved tens of thousands of lives in Cyclone Sidr.”