Speakers at a discussion yesterday urged the government to control unplanned and illegal shrimp farming, which is rendering barren the arable land and ruining sources of fresh water in the tropical cyclone-hit coastal belt.
The discussion, titled Revisiting Aila: Cry for Safe WaSh, was organised by NGO Forum and Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies at the auditorium of the Department of Public Health and Engineering in the city.
Influential people, who run unplanned and illegal shrimp related operations here, farm shrimps by leaking water through the embankment, which is meant for resisting saline water, into their shrimp enclosures, they said.
The saline water, brought into the areas of fresh water sources for shrimp cultivation, affects agriculture, making the fertile land barren. This is causing huge suffering for the people here, they added.
“People’s sufferings will continue unless the illegal and unplanned shrimp farming is stopped,” said Joyonti Rani Sarker, an inhabitant of Dakope upazila of Khulna.
On May 25, 2009, tropical cyclone Aila hit Bangladesh’s coastal districts, particularly Satkhira, Khulna and Bagerhat and damaged the coastal embankment with a massive tidal surge, rendering saline the fresh water sources there.
Apart from Aila, unplanned shrimp farming is one of the major reasons behind increasing salinity in the coastal belt, said Dr Abdullah Harun Chowdhury, professor of Environmental Science at Khulna University.
The current trend of increasing salinity in the coastal belt is high, compared to the time before cyclone Aila hit the coastal belt, he said.
Justifying his statement, he said, for instance, the water salinity level was .6 to 23.8 ppm (Parts per million) in 2012 while it was 4 to 22 ppm in 2009.
In addition to the scarcity of fresh drinking water, the illegal shrimp farming is rendering barren the arable land in the coastal belt where shrimps are farmed, he said.
Nurul Islam Sikder, an inhabitant of Shaymnagar upazila of Satkhira said they could not cultivate cereal crops, including paddy, because the coastal land has lost its fertility due to its increasing salinity.
When the concerns were taken up with Dr Sultan Ahmed, director (Natural Resource Management) of the Department of Environment, he said, “We have finalised the draft of the National Environment Policy 2013. It will be sent to the cabinet for approval soon.”
According to the World Fish Centre, around 160,000 hectares of land are being used for shrimp farming in Bangladesh, of which 130,000 hectares is in Satkhira, Khulna and Bagerhat.