The three-day-long South Asia Youth Camp has called on world leaders to address issues related to climate change.
On Thursday the camp started with 80 participants from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka, who said they want the climate treaty implemented immediately in the greater interest of the human race.
They staged an extraordinary protest against continued procrastination about the treaty’s implementation, by lying on the road in front of the Noakhali Press Club to depict the lives affected and being lost due to climate change.
The camp is hosted by Participatory Action Network in association with OXFAM and several other voluntary organisations.
Earlier on Wednesday a press conference was held where the network’s Chief Executive Nurul Alam Masud spoke along with South Asia Chapter Coordinator Annarose, head of Humanity Watch Hasan Mehdi, president of Noakhali Press Club Ziaul Haque, and journalist Moniruzzaman Chowdhury.
Nurul Alam in his keynote speech said 80% of South Asia’s poor live in rural areas and their livelihood depend on agriculture and water, so agricultural and water management is the key to eradicating poverty through sustainable and equitable growth. But 33% of common water bodies have already been encroached on threatening South Asian rural communities’ livelihoods. He said urgent action is needed to achieve food insecurity in South Asia by 2050.
The network conducted surveys to collect information from the participants attending pervious camps, which revealed cross-boundary river basin management was a major problem in South Asia. He said that due to barriers upstream that stopped the flow of water in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna and Sindh basins, communities downstream, especially in coastal areas, were vulnerable to increased salinity, floods, water logging and high sedimentation.
He said fresh water is becoming scarcer due to rising sea levels leading to contamination and salinity. While, the melting ice caps in the Himalayan range is leading to worse flooding across the region.
The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation agreed to establish a food bank and a seed bank as well as address climate change, but the multilateral policies were yet to be implemented properly, according to the survey report.
Some bilateral agreements on trans-boundary water management had been reached but riverine communities have not benefitted because the treaties are inadequately implemented.