Our daily headlines are filled with natural disasters and their disastrous consequences: Hundreds killed by mud slides in Brazil; Australia hit by catastrophic floods; US paralyzed by winter blizzards… And 2011 is just two weeks old.
The people of Bangladesh know what it’s like to be at the centre of stories involving nature’s energy. In the space of two years, Cyclone Sidr and Cyclone Aila killed thousands and did enormous damage to the country’s infrastructure. Based on those traumatic experiences, the government in Dhaka has decided to invest heavily in developing the eco-systems of the Sundarbans to increase the region’s ability to withstand natural calamities.
According to the Financial Express, the only English-language financial daily newspaper in Bangladesh, “The objectives of the project also include creating alternative employment opportunities for the people living in and around the Sundarbans, said State Minister for Environment and Forests Dr Hasan Mahmud. He said the project will also aim at creating alternative means of livelihood for the people living adjacent to the Sundarbans so that they would not have to rely only on the products of the mangrove forest.”
Work on the project is expected to completed by December 2014.