Govt to formulate plan to protect Sundarbans from disasters
The government will formulate a plan of action to protect the Sundarbans from any further disasters, said officials at a programme that made public the final report of Bangladesh-UN Joint Sundarbans Oil Spill Response Team.
The government also plans to monitor long-term impacts of the oil spillage, if any, they said at the programme at Cirdap auditorium in the capital yesterday.
With support from the United Nations Development Programme, the environment and forest ministry will formulate the plan in a two-day workshop to be held soon, they added.
Alamgir Hossain, programme analyst, environment and energy, UNDP gave a presentation on the final report.
He said 19 percent of the spilled oil was collected by the local community.
The final report concluded that 51 percent of the people engaged in collection of the spilled oil have been facing health problems.
It recommended monitoring their health, said Alamgir.
UN Resident Coordinator in Dhaka Robert Watkins said the Sundarbans was a global treasure with a very high ecological value and that it was a collected responsibility of the global community to save it.
Kamal Uddin Ahmed, acting secretary to the environment and forest ministry, said the ministry was not prepared for the oil spillage.
However, now the ministry would be ready to tackle any such disaster in the future, he added.
Environment and forest minister Anwar Hossain Manju said Bangladesh has to face challenges in every sector.
He said although the oil spillage was a new disaster for Bangladesh, the country tackled it successfully.
On December 9 last year, oil tanker Southern Star-7 carrying 3.56 lakh litres of furnace oil sank in the river Shela, a sanctuary for endangered dolphins in the Sundarbans.
The Bangladesh-UN Joint Sundarbans Oil Spill Response Team comprising 25 experts from home and abroad visited the Sundarbans on December 22 for six days to evaluate the primary impact of the oil spillage.
Comments