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BBC reports on how Bangladesh is coping with climate change

This entry was posted by Cate Heinrich on November 18th, 2009 at 2:00 pm and is filed under 'Here & Now' climate change campaign, Climate change, General, News Blog,

Last week the BBC visited Char Atra, a small island community in Bangladesh, where Oxfam is supporting people to adapt to climate change and find alternative livelihoods. Cate Heinrich reports.

Last week, together with the BBC, I returned to Char Atra, a river island in southern Bangladesh, to see how this community had coped with an unusual monsoon this year.

It’s difficult for the people here to know what to expect as climate change hits their community hard and in different ways. Some years they are forced to cope with unpredictable high floods that wash away their land and homes, and then this year there was no rain at all.

Nargis Begum and her new son [Photo credit: Cate Heinrich]

One woman happy about the lack of rainfall was Nargis Begum, who gave birth to her son in August. When we met her earlier in the year she was scared that she may have her baby in the flood shelter, or on a platform raised above the floodwater in her home. But with no flood, Nargis was able to have a risk-free birth and, although proudly showing us her baby son, Shagor, she admitted, “I was hoping for a girl this time… I now have four boys!”

It was not good news for everyone. The extreme weather conditions bring incredible hardship to the local fishermen and farmers. They have struggled this year with hardly any fish in the river and not enough water to harvest the jute or rice crops.

Oxfam is working with the people of Char Atra to adapt to climate change and find alternative livelihoods. On the day I visited, about 300 women received vegetable seeds in a distribution organised by SDS, Oxfam’s partner organisation.

And whenever the BBC’s Mark Dummett asked women about why they were rearing ducks - another livelihood option provided by SDS - rather than chickens, the response was immediate: “Because they can swim in the floods.”

Sunset over the water at Char Atra [Photo credit: Cate Heinrich]

We watched the sun set over the char as filming came to an end for the day. And I thought of the inspirational people I’ve met in Char Atra throughout the year. The fishermen like Geetu who are now working as day labourers to support their families, the mothers such as Sufia who lost children in the floods and then the hope from women like Nargis, as she holds her new baby son.

Char Atra is just one small community in Bangladesh. It represents the thousands of villages coping with a changing environment. And, importantly, the 20 million more people in Bangladesh who will be drastically affected in the future by climate change, unless governments choose to act now.

Get involved: Climate change

Watch BBC news from Char Atra

One Response

Kevin Edge says:

Coping with the natural ebb and flow of natural climate IS an issue worhy of our attention, ans those whom it effects most strongly deserve support absolutely. If there was less attention and money pouring all over the (false) CO2 emissions fixation, then there would be ample and more for these real situations!
I am sure all the people involved with Oxfam’s well-meaning campaign are good-hearted with loving and compassionate intentions. It is for this reason that I am writing this comment.
I urge all of you to do your own investigations into ‘human-caused CO2 driven global warming’. There is NO consensus, scientific or otherwise that cutting man-made CO2 emissions will have a significant effect on global warming. Indeed the temperature has been DECREASING for the last 10 years!
I am all for getting to the actual issues at hand here that demand our attention - a few examples - assisting those countries and peoples who are affected by natural climate fluctuations/pollution/deforestation/preserving natural ecosystems and habitats/sustainable clean energies/reducing waste/recycling etc. etc.
One of the most appalling things about the whole AGW scam: it puts ALL the focus on CO2 (a natural gas that’s necessary to make this planet inhabitable for humans by the way - not a “pollutant”), and hence takes the attention AWAY from the issues above!
December 8th, 2009 at 3:22 pm