A story headlined ‘Wetland vanishing fast for dev projects’ which appeared in this newspaper on Sunday, says most of the wetlands of the country are disappearing fast due to the unplanned urbanisation and industrialisation.
The country has lost 87 percent area of its wetlands in seven north-east districts of the country in the last 33 years. The wetland area of Sunamganj, Sylhet, Habiganj, Moulvibazar, Netrakona, Kishoreganj and Brahmanbaria has shrank drastically due to negligence and lack of supervision, unplanned urbanisation and illegal occupation. Country’s 373 haors had a total of 30,350 square kilometers of wetland in 1988. But the seven north-east districts have now only 406 square kilometers wetland, says a study. All know the country’s wetland like haors, baors, bills, jheels, lakes, depressed land and vast water bodies are very precious gifts of nature. Among them haor is the most prominent and resourceful wetland which occupies country’s north-east districts.
Country’s 373 haors had a
total of 30,350 square
kilometers of wetland in 1988
But unplanned constructions, grabbing, adverse impact of climate change, change of river flow and siltation in haor area will deteriorate the overall situation in coming days. Therefore, people living in the wetland area will face extreme flood risks which will force them to leave their habitats if the situation is not improved immediately.
In recent years, we have witnessed that the devastating flood destroyed the habitats, crops lands and poultry farms completely and washed away fish ponds, leaving the low-lying parts of the north-east region behind a trail of destruction. Besides, many people and cattle drowned in the flood water.The infrastructure growth and vanishing wetland are equally blamed for devastating floods.
The wetlands were created naturally to contain water during the monsoon. After the monsoon, the haors dry up and transform into enormous green meadows in the winter.Now water cannot flow normally and increases the risk of flood as we are losing the wetland.
