THE New Nation on Thursday reported that the UN experts team has recommended banning traffic through the Sundarbans following a six-day facts finding visit by the United Nations-Bangladesh Mission. They shared some of its findings with the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) and the media and according to them, there is marked environmental impacts to the mangrove and aquatic ecosystem. The report is a brief and tentative one in nature and context.
Another full report will follow in two weeks time with more in depth analysis on the damage sustained by the Sundarbans due to the oil spill and until then the experts team of the United Nations (UN) has advised the government to take legislative measures immediately to avoid traffic through the Sundarbans and mitigate the oil spilled there earlier. Reports added that the UN will provide training, equipment, and will also be monitoring the lessons learned from the oil spill. As decided, the UNDP and Bangladesh Government will work together to ensure ecological balance in the world’s largest mangrove forest. In response to the unfortunate happening, the Minister of Environment and Forests said that the Ministry is planning an alternative route for the vessels and they have some other plans in hands.
In general there is an energy crisis everywhere and it is understandable that there is a pressure to keep up with the energy demands of everyday life. In order to do that, we must think about the environment and manage sustainability. It is another issue entirely that the government were completely taken aback with the oil spill and could not take necessary steps to save the environment and also failed to assist the locals who made more of an effort to clean the surrounding areas. But the government cannot also suddenly shrug off its responsibilities and not deal with the dire consequences. This oil spillage was a loud wake up call for those in public office and the rest of the nation as to how unprepared and even apathetic we are about disaster prevention and management.
The UN’s opinion is something we must keep in mind and keep traffic of goods and oil away through the Sundarbans because prevention is the better solution.
As it has been proved on more than one occasions that the government, more so the permanent bureaucratic authorities, have utterly failed to handle the post disaster – man-made or nature – situations mainly for poor planning and inefficiency.
We strongly support the UN’s experts suggestion to ban traffic-channel through the Sundarbans to save it from any future man-made disaster.
