In the last two months of 2022, two large global events took place on two continents flanking the Atlantic Ocean. In November, around 35,000 people met at the Egyptian tourist city of Sharm El-Sheikh for the 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27).
Capacity development is an important part of mainstreaming NbS and LLA.
On November 2, the government made the long-awaited National Adaptation Plan of Bangladesh (2023-2050) public.
Two concepts related to climate change – Locally-Led Adaptation (LLA) and Nature-Based Solutions (NbS) – have gained significant momentum over the last couple of years.
The 2022 JRP has five strategic objectives to support the affected Bangladeshi and Rohingya populations.
In the last couple of months, we have been listening to discussions on how to build on the outcomes of the COP26—the 26th Conference of the Parties for climate change held in Glasgow, UK last year.
As we enter the third year of the Covid-19 pandemic, the societal challenges we were fighting in the pre-Covid times all got worse over the past two years—be it extreme poverty, food and water crises, biodiversity loss, ecological degradation, or climatic change and associated disasters. But, can nature still be a part of tackling these challenges?
If we want to address our development and societal challenges with the help of nature, we have three options. While nature-based solutions (NbS) have been discussed in this column extensively, let’s talk about two other options: nature-driven solutions and nature-inspired solutions.
The Government of Bangladesh has recently drafted the Mujib Climate Prosperity Plan Decade 2030.
On November 13, 2021, the two-week 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP26, ended in Scotland with the participating nations agreeing upon the Glasgow Climate Pact.
When I talk about Bangladesh’s climate change response, I get excited by the thought of three milestones.
Over the last four years, the Rohingya refugee crisis has changed the Cox’s Bazar-Teknaf Peninsula on many levels.
Before answering the question in the title, let’s look into Nature-based Solutions (NbS) and Blue Economy.
If we track the history of floating agriculture in Bangladesh, we may find six major phases. It is difficult to pinpoint when floating cultivation began in Bangladesh—the current reckoning goes up to 400 years ago.
Over the last 50 years, Bangladesh’s journey towards community development has essentially been a result of government, donors, and NGOs coming together to work for the vulnerable people.
When we talk about nature-based solutions (NbS)—that is protecting, managing, restoring or creating ecosystems for the benefit of the people and biodiversity—we almost always think of wilderness or rural areas.
Farmers of the south-central districts of Bangladesh, namely Barishal, Gopalganj, Madaripur, and Pirojpur, have been practicing floating agriculture for decades, if not centuries.
The third batch of Rohingya refugees entered Bhashan Char on January 29 and January 30, 2021. Out of Cox’s Bazar’s 867,000 refugees, about 6,700 have now been voluntarily relocated since December 2020 to this island on the Bay of Bengal.
In 2020, Nature-based Solutions, or NbS, has emerged as a much-talked-about environmental concept in Bangladesh.
Twenty-Four years ago, when the prime ministers of Bangladesh and India signed the Ganges Water Sharing Treaty on December 12, 1996, it was quite a different world to mark such a milestone.
We may blame Covid-19 for drawing our attention away from biodiversity conservation. But the truth is, for a long time, we have been talking about biodiversity a lot, rather than saving it.
It is an irony that while between 2000 and 2019, the world GDP grew by 260 percent, two billion people still do not have regular access to safe, healthy, and sufficient food—they still do not have food security.
Over the last three years, the Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar and Teknaf have been telling us many stories of failures, successes and uncertainties.
I always wanted to take two photographs of the same spot of Tanguar Haor—one in the driest month of the year and one in the wettest.
Barsha-Kaal, or the rainy season, has officially arrived this week. If we were not shackled by Covid-19, we would have been welcoming monsoon with singing and dancing at public gatherings, arranging tree fairs, and planting hundreds and thousands of saplings all over the country. A perfect time to make our country greener!
Well, the Sundar-bans has done it again! As it has been doing for hundreds of years. This time, it took the blow of super-cyclone Amphan and saved us from severe devastation.
Due to the pandemic, we are doing a lot of otherwise-unusual things—be it maintaining physical distance in public places,
The coronavirus pandemic has revealed three alarming connections between us and nature.
Our current under-standing and response to the ongoing “corona crisis” are results of extensive, fast-track research. The possible transfer of the
In the middle of the devastating coronavirus crisis, we have come across some good news about the environment.
The first academic journal, Le Journal des Sçavans, was published on January 5, 1665 from Paris. Over the past three centuries—according to the latest STM Report 2018 by the International Association of Scientific,
According to the Global Risks Report 2020 from the World Economic Forum (WEF), biodiversity loss is now the third most serious risk our world is facing in terms of impact.
On May 29, 2014, soon after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published the second volume of its massive Fifth Assessment Report, an interesting article was written in The Daily Star.
Bangladesh’s forests tell us many stories. Let me share three of them.
The IUCN Red List turns 53 this year. Officially known as The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, it is basically a scientific tool that helps to check, if a species - plant or animal, big or small, fast or slow - is at risk of becoming extinct from the face of the earth, forever.
As we start 2017 we have many encouraging numbers to be proud of. The country has been sustaining GDP growth at 6.3 percent for the last five years. Per capita income (USD 1,314) is more than twice of that of 2008. Less than 13 percent of us are now extreme poor,