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On Achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Bangladesh (Goal 15)

October 30, 2018 - 12:06 am. Hits: 9181

On Achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Bangladesh (Goal 15)

 

Md. Amzad Hossain

Perth, Western Australia

Email: A.Hossain@curtin.edu.au

 

Goal 15 Life on Earth : Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss.

 

Prelude

Bangladesh urgently needs fixing its degraded and degrading terrestrial i.e. topographical sustainability in terms of diverse landscape and inland water body ecosystems health. Sustainable Development Goals 15 (SDG15) aims at meeting these needs, specifically with respect to “Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss”. And the goal’s target area 15.1 urges that “by 2020 ensure conservation, restoration and sustainable use of terrestrial and inland freshwater ecosystems and their services, in particular forests, wetlands, mountains and dry land, …” The two imperatives together constitute the full physical features of Bangladesh.   

This discourse reveals guidelines to restore the degraded ecosystemic entities, halt further deterioration of the degrading ones, and promote sustainable use of natural resources of the country in light of wisdom, Scriptural revelations and the country’s past sustainability symptoms. 

 

What wisdom quotes are linked to achieving SDG15?

  • For most of history, man has had to fight nature to survive; in this century he is beginning to realize that, in order to survive, he must protect it. Jacques-Yves Cousteau
  • Nature is pleased with simplicity. And nature is no dummy.  – Isaac Newton
  • Nature is not our enemy, to be raped and conquered. Nature is ourselves, to be cherished and explored. Terence McKenna
  • Nature is the phenomena of the physical world collectively, including plants, animals, the landscape, and other features and products of the earth, as opposed to humans or human creations. Google
  • All things in nature occur mathematically. René Descartes[i]
  • There is new life in the soil for every man. There is healing in the trees for tired minds and for our overburdened spirits, there is strength in the hills, if only we will lift up our eyes. Remember that nature is your great restorer.[ii] Calvin Coolidge

 

 

Which Scriptural revelations must be remembered while exploiting natural resources?

“Lo! We have created everything by measure” (Quran 54:49).

“We have counted everything in a clear register” (Quran 36:12).

“There is nothing whose treasures are not with Us and We only send it down in a known measure” (Quran15:12).

“Mischief has appeared on the land and sea, because of (the need) that the hands of man have earned, that (Allah) may give them a taste of some of their deeds: in order that they may turn back (from evil)” (Quran 30:41).

         “do not exceed the limits, surely Allah does not love those who exceed the limits” (Quran 2:190).

সত্য বল সুপথে চল ওরে আমার মন (O my mind - Speak the truth and live rightly i.e. observe simple living) - Lalon Fakir.

How does SDG15 fit into the physical features of Bangladesh?

            Bangladesh largely meets all the terrestrial criteria noted in SDG15. It has Hill Tracts occupying 12% of the country’s total landmass; the deserting Barind Tract occupies 8%; Coastal area including the Sundarbans mangrove forests (25%); and 55% flood prone plain land including Char land (shoals),  water bodies such as rivers and natural lakes (Beels and Haors). This shows that Bangladesh has all the terrestrial related (i.e. SDG15) and inland freshwater related (i.e. SDG15.1) degrading ecosystem phenomena that need utmost attention. Not many countries on earth have all these geo-environmental features within such a small landmass of 147447 square kilometers only.

 

Why Bangladesh urgently needs to achieve SDG15?        

Bangladesh suffers from unsustainable terrestrial ecosystemic health. According to the Department of Environment, 24 per cent of Bangladesh’s land area was forested in 1947. This has been reduced to only 6.5 per cent in 1980 as estimated by the World Resources Institute.[iii] In another account, “WE learn it from no less a person than the finance minister that forest coverage has come down to only nine percent. He emphasized on social afforestation and massive tree plantation in each village to face the climate change impacts. His observations came at the inaugural session of the first Bangladesh Forestry Congress 2011 held in Dhaka”. [iv] The forest resources are alarmingly depleting.”[v]

The Barind Tract is under desertification (Ahmed, 2010). Water bodies are rapidly shrinking and degrading. Bangladesh had open water bodies spanning 40,47,000 hectares and closed water bodies spanning 3,51,000 hectares. A loss of about 45 per cent of the water bodies seems, therefore, concerning. Rivers have been grabbed and narrowed. Canals, ponds, tanks and coastal polders have also been grabbed over the time. Bangladesh might soon hurtle to a disaster in meeting water challenges.[vi]

 

What development initiative is primarily responsible for triggering degradation?

            Largely the Green Revolution, as an attempt of the West, emerged in the 1960s to assist in poverty alleviation in Bangladesh. People thought that it aimed only “to increase agricultural output with high-yield seeds, chemical fertilisers and pesticides, irrigation, and advanced machinery” (Dauvergne 2009). In reality, however, it delivered the opposite results – declining natural resources and cultural heritage. Its energy intensive technologies, such as mechanical tilling and irrigation, chemical fertilisers, insecticides and pesticides are some of the most damaging agents for humankind and the environment. Any benefits from increased agricultural productivity were short-term, unsustainable and at the cost of contamination (Shiva 1994).

The Green Revolution created an ecological breakdown in nature through major changes in ecosystems and agrarian structures together with a breakdown of society with local labour replaced by capital- and chemical-intensive solutions, creating debt for farmers. According to Shiva (1994), these are the consequences of a policy based on tearing apart both nature and society. The Green Revolution technologies generated social and cultural setback, including widening of the economic gap between the rich and the poor farmers as well as politico-cultural crises due to the erosion of moral values (Shiva 1994, 2016; Rogers et al. 2008). Most importantly, its technologies created demand for electricity beyond what the country could supply.

 

Is SDG15 compatible to the present philosophy of development?

Clearly NOT.

 

Why?

The present development is largely based on the philosophy of “economic growth” instead of “sustainable development” which is clearly destructive to terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems resulting in utter unsustainability.

           

What to do in light of the government’s commitment for achieving SDGs?

            The present economic growth intensive development must be transformed to sustainability building development conforming to the sustainability scenarios

 

What is the baseline blueprint of the sustainability scenarios?

            The pre-1960s sustainability scenarios of Bangladesh is an achievable baseline.

 

What were the past sustainability scenarios?

Nadi vora jol                           Waters in river,

math vora sashay                               fields full of crops,

pukur vora maas                                 ponds full of fish,

gohal vora garu                                   cows in the cowshed,

bari vora gaas                         homesteads with trees,

pakhir kolotan                          melodious tune of the birds,

shisur koahol                           uproar of children,

bauler o majheer gaan                      songs of Bauls and boatmen,

Rathe banya jantu O vuther voy.”     fear of wild animals and                                                                                                                    ghosts at night.

 

What must we do to achieve the above?

            We need to  change our secularist mindset to Scriptural Stewardship values (Appleton, 2014; Anielski, 2009)The rural people (about 80%) of Bangladesh culturally apply the Scriptural Stewardship values to their lifestyle including consumption culture and natural resource management in order to sustain sustainability amidst several terrestrial ecosystemic unsustainability phenomena. As a result, their culturally intrinsic sustainability management has resulted in the world lowest land and food ‘footprint’ (FAO 2013). If the rest of our people can demonstrate simple lifestyle and Stewardship values of the rural masses, it is clear that the SDG15 can be fully achieved depicting the above synergistic sustainability scenarios.

 

What is meant by ‘protect, restore and promote’ in the context of SDG15?

 “Protect” means to give protection or to prevent people or things from being harmed or damaged by people or by natural means.[vii]

“Restore” means to make or bring something from its degraded or damaged state to its original state.[viii] 

“Promote” refers to increase awareness, create interest, generate actions to protect and/or restore things.[ix]

 

How to protect, restore and promote an ecosystem?

An ecosystem is a distinct assemblage of plants and animals (Grafton et al., 2004). It can also be defined as all the species found in an area plus the physical environment in which they reside (Taylor, 2005). Ecosystems entail all the living things in a particular area as well as the non-living things with which they interact, such as air, soil, water, and sunlight.[x] Ecosystem services contribute to jobs, economic growth, health, and human wellbeing.

An ecosystem can be achieved by way of addressing the unsustainability issues such as the recurrent changing nature of the country’s physical, environmental and cultural features. Ecosystemic sustainability characteristics are affected because of the recurrent changes that require adjustment to their original state by way of restoration and replenishment. Needful adjustments are, therefore, recurrent requirement for achieving SDG15in Bangladesh.

In order to stop or adjust this changing situation and also to do proper protection, regeneration, restoration and conservation of natural and human resources, the role of stewardship integrity, as advocated by Islam, needs to be implemented. This is why linking responsibility to sustainability issues is increasingly being recognised as an act of stewardship.

 

How ‘stewardship integrity’ is linked to achieving SDG15?

Stewardship is understood as a responsibility for the sustainability of future generations of people as well as that of the natural environment. In this regard, the Quran reveals: later we made you their successors in the land, to see how you would behave (s10:14). This responsibility has been interpreted as having two aspects: first, humans have been entrusted to act as the stewards of nature; second, people will be held accountable for the degree to which they have fulfilled their duties on earth (Gilliat-Ray and Bryant, 2011). The Islamic concept of responsibility claims that humans are created as Vicegerents on the earth and were given knowledge of all things, so that they can conduct the “right action” for the sustainability of all diverse things in nature. These special position and functions of humans in creation are referred to as being the “trustees” of nature (Chittick, 1983). 

MacCracken et al.(2008) maintain that Islam teaches mankind should be cautious and vigilant  against damages from extravagancy. Thus, in order to protect a terrestrial ecosystem it is imperative to maintain  sustainability through topographic features and environment benign sustainable development that require human to exploit finite renewable resources  within their regenerative capacity. According to Islam, sustainability exists as a “measurable” entity of beings and things through the visible state of the ecosystems’ health. The Quran reveals: “We send down water from the sky according to (due) measure, and We cause it to soak in the soil; and We certainly are able to drain it off (with ease)” (23:18); “With it We grow for you gardens of date-palms and vines: in them have ye abundant fruits: and of them ye eat (and have enjoyment)” (23:19); “And We have provided therein means of subsistence, – for you and for those (other creatures) for whose sustenance ye are not responsible” (15:20).

 

How to ‘restore’ and ‘promote’ terrestrial ecosystems in the deserting Barind region?

            The practice of sustainable development can lead to restore terrestrial ecosystems naturally. Members of the living ecosystems are by nature ‘renewable’, self-generating in their respective natural environment. The promotion of terrestrial ecosystems is integrally linked to small-scale production to meet human’s basic consumption needs. E. F. Schumacher’s ‘Small is Beautiful’ (173) focuses on this issue.

Desertification is the synergy between persistent land degradation and ecosystem depletion due to unstewardship use of natural resources. For example, the Barind Multipurpose Development Authority - BMDA introduced deep tube-well irrigation system in the 1990s in the region to meet the adverse effects of India's Farakka dam on the international water flow in the Ganges (known as the Padma river in Bangladesh part of the river). This has resulted in the shrinkage of underground water table of the region  and consequently it has  become the principal cause of both desertification, arsenic and environmental problems in Bangladesh (Ahmed, 2010).

However, in order to encounter the overall situation of the Barind, there is an urgent need for stewardship intensive SDGs model project aiming at implementing integrated ecosystem management implementing responsible land resource management values and appropriate technologies, so that desertification process can be encountered by reversing itself gradually towards the restoration of the Barind's pristine environmental conditions and terrestrial ecosystemic productivity.

 

What methods Bangladesh people need to follow up for achieving SDG15?

           Bangladesh is a wetland extensive country. Its wetlands function as the kidneys of the landscape stabilizing water supplies and cleansing pollution. They also protect the shorelines, recharge the groundwater aquifers and provide unique habitats for a wide variety of flora and fauna. The biodiversity supported by wetlands is essential for the natural food chain. These multiple functionalities of the wetlands are globally recognised and some refer to them as “biological supermarkets” (Mitsch and Gosselink 2000). Understanding and managing wetland sustainability is of utmost importance not only from a sustainability point of view, but also from cultural and spiritual perspectives, particularly for a country like Bangladesh. Being a riverine country with surplus workforce, an efficient and sustainable food distribution system means that the country’s dying waterways and traditional muscle driven water and land transport systems can be revitalised. This would affirm national level food security facilitating accessibility for needy people under any circumstances and without interruption. This would also be highly complementary to Bangladesh’s depleting water and water resources including fish, ecologically sustainable agriculture and local employment for rural people (Islam 2012).

The Islamic religion also highlights ways to practice sustainability in terms of protection, restoration and conservation of nature in accordance with Sufism showing how to accomplish this in action. The Sharia literature, mysticism, sayings and doings of Sufis, including the mystic Baul singer-philosophers of Bangladesh, conceive sustainability as a reflection of a lifestyle that reinforces regeneration of ecological goods. The Bauls are environmentalists by their belief and practice; they are truly soul stirring and take the listeners closest to nature, namely the divine. They are simple, natural, unembellished and rooted in the soil (Hossain, 1995) and advocate for a non-violent and non-destructive use of technological deployment, the way Islam does.[xi]

 

Concluding remarks

            The above discussion reveals implementation of achieving SDG15 in Bangladesh’s 5 terrestrial or topographical ecosystemic contexts that is clearly achievable. The action research team at Curtin University Sustainability Policy (CUSP) Institute in conjunction with relevant Bangladesh government agencies is committed to implement SDGs in Bangladesh through the country’s 5 topography specific Model Projects. This Discourse attempts to achieve SDG15 in resemblance with the terrestrial ecosystemic features of pre-Green Revolution “Golden Bengal”, “the Paradise of Nations” and “the land of wealth” (Hossain and Marinova, 2008; Novak, 1993).

Contrasting with that of the Islamic belief, as recently as in the 1960s, Western scientific understanding of the world guided most people to believe that the natural environment as infinite until Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring (1962) exposed that the opposite is the case. For the followers of Islam, the Quran revealed the finiteness of natural resources more than 1400 years ago: “We have counted everything in a clear register” (36:12); “There is nothing whose treasures are not with Us and We only send it down in a known measure” (15:12). They are commanded to bear this finiteness and live simply (Mulder, 2006). Fazlun and O’Brien (1992) with Islamic belief argue that in Western science theories are always open to rejection and change while Muslim scientists explain the “natures” of created things in terms of their supernatural origin. This emphasises the sacred character of creation, since to abuse what is natural, or to show lack of respect for nature, is to show lack of respect for the Creator.

Long before the western world focused on the implications of unsustainable human activities and ways of living, traditional communities of rural Bangladesh possessed the blueprint for their sustainability by way of terrestrial ecosystems management in their values and spirituality. The Baul philosophers, the Bangladeshi syncretistic religious tradition that integrates wisdom from Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity into religious secularism and has the elements of liberalism, universalism, particularism, naturalism and mysticism, have always promoted simple living sustaining ecosystems health (Hossain and Marinova, 2003). An implication from this characteristic of resource management is urgent in Bangladesh with respect to achieving SDG15.

(To be continued)

 

References

Ahmed, S. (n.d.) The Status and Challenges of Water Infrastructure Development in Bangladesh. Country Paper. www.ecowaterinfra.org/knowledgebox/documents/Bangladesh%
20-%20country%20reprot.pdf (accessed 15.09.2010)

 

Appleton, Jack 2014 Values in Sustainable Development. Routledge, London.

 

Anielski, Mark 2009 The Economics of Happiness – Building Genuine Weath. New Society Publishing, Canada.

 

Carson, R., 1962. Silent Spring, Houghton Miffin, New York.

 

Chittick, W.C., 1983. Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi, State University of New York Press, Albany.

 

Dauvergne, Peter. 2009 The A to Z of Environmentalism. The Scarecrow Press, Toronto.

FAO - Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. 2013. “Food Security Dimensions at the National Level.” http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3434e/i3434e03.pdf.

 

Fazlun, Khalid, and Joanne O’Brien. eds. 1992. Islam and Ecology. New York: Cassel Publishers.

 

Gilliat-Ray, Sophie., and Bryant, Mark. (2011) Are British Muslims ‘ Green’? An Overview of Environmental Activism among Muslims in Britain. Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture 5.3:284-306.

 

Grafton, Quentin  R.; Adamowicz, Wiktor; Dupont, Diane; Nelson, Harry; Hill, Robert J.; and Renzetti, Steven. 2004. Economics of the Environment and Natural Resources. Blackwell Publishing, Australia.

 

Hossain, A. 1995 Mazar Culture in Bangladesh. PhD Thesis, Murdoch University, Perth, Australia.

 

Hossain, A and Marinova, D. 2008 Connecting Biosystems and Self-Reliance, Proceedings of the

1st International Conference on Technologies & Strategic Management of Sustainable Biosystems, International Organisation for Biotechnology and Bioengineering, Fremantle, Australia.

 

 

Hossain, A & Marinova, D 2003, ‘Assessing tools for sustainability: Bangladesh context’, Proceedings of the Second Meeting of the Academic Forum of Regional Government for Sustainable Development. Fremantle, Australia, viewed 23 August 2015, http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/21335/1/assessing_tools_for_sustainability.pdf

Islam, Mohammad 2012. “The Politics of Food Security in Bangladesh.” PhD Thesis, University of New South Wales,103. http://www.unsworks.unsw.edu.au/primo_library/libweb/action/dlDisplay.do?vid=UNSWORKS&docId=unsworks_11039.

 

MacCracken, Michael C., Moore, Frances,  and Topping, John C. Jr. 2008 Sudden and Disruptive Climate Change – exploring the real risk and how can avoid them. Earthscan, London.

 

Mitsch, William, and James Gosselink. 2000. Wetlands. 3rd ed. New York, NY: Wiley and Sons, 3.

 

Mulder, Karel ed. 2006. Sustainable Development for Engineers. A Handbook and  Resource Guide. Greenleaf Publishing, Sheffield, UK.

Rogers, PP, Jalal, KF & Boyd, JA 2008, An Introduction to sustainable development, Earthscan, London.

Schumacher, E.F. 1974 Small is Beautiful – A Study of Econmics as if People Mattered. Abacus, London

Shiva, V. 1994, The violence of the Green Revolution: ecological degradation and political conflict in Punjab, Zed Press. New Delhi.

Shiva, V. 2016, The violence of the Green Revolution: Third world agriculture, ecology and politics, Kentucky University Press, Lexington, KY

 

Taylor, Bill. 2005 Effective Environmental, Health, and Safety Management Using the Team Approach. Willey Inter-science. New Jersey.

 

Endnotes

 

[iii] http://www.fao.org/docrep/008/ae537e/ae537e0k.htm#fn28

[iv] Thursday, April 21, 2011

Editorial

[v] The Daily Independent.  "Agro-development of our coastal area: Cropping pattern"by Dr. Amzad Hossain.  In Post Editorial., dated December 1, 2000. Dhaka, Bangladesh.

[vi] http://www.newagebd.net/article/37375/water-bodies-left-to-die-water-challenges-left-ignored

[vii] https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/protection

[ix] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promotion_(marketing)

[x] https://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/sectors/ecosystems#intro-section

[xi] Bauls are illiterate and do not write down their innumerable spontaneously composed songs, however the messages they convey cannot but portray them as supreme Pundits (scholars). The impact that they have on listeners in shaping behaviour and values is enormous. Despite the fact that the majority of the Baul-philosophers come from a Muslim background, they display a religious indifference or neutrality, which suggests that the practice of secularism by “people who understand” can also reinforce the proper management of terrestrial ecosystems. The unity within the diversity is one of the most important goals of the Islamic messages (Hossain, 1995).

 

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