Unabated sand-mining ruining rivers: speakers
Experts at an online seminar yesterday warned against the dangerous practice of uncontrolled sand-mining, cautioning that this is destroying our rivers.
While it is legal to mine sand from quarries, the conditions under which such mining can be done is not followed, said Syeda Rizwana Hasan, chief executive of Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers' Association (Bela).
The webinar, titled "River Sand Mining and Navigation Management: Costs and Benefits" was organised by the Trans-boundary Rivers of South Asia project, Change Initiative and Oxfam Bangladesh.
"A location can only be declared as a sand quarry if it is environmentally sound. While sand quarries are legal, how lawfully these are leased out is a question," said Hasan.
"From stone quarrying, the government only earns Tk 36 crore per year, but the whole of Sylhet is ruined because of rivers being leased out. We don't know how much revenue is being earned from sand-mining, but it is affecting the environment," she added.
"Sand-mining is managed by the district commissioner. It is not being done according to any plan. The law says a pre-survey and a post-survey must be conducted to understand the effects of mining, but it is not done," said Mohammad Mezbah Uddin Chowdhury, secretary to the ministry of shipping.
"Our district commissioners lease out areas around the foreshore for sand-mining, which is very dangerous. I have seen roads collapse as a result," said Enamul Mazid Khan Siddique, head of Climate Justice and Natural Resource Rights.
He also warned against indiscriminate dredging of rivers.
"There is a dredging festival going on throughout the country. Dredging is supposed to be conducted to increase navigability of rivers, but now, dredging is politically motivated," he stated.
Ainun Nishat, professor emeritus of Centre for Climate Change and Environmental Research at Brac University, said, "Taking on dredging projects without any data about what river needs to be dredged and where, will not lead to any benefits."
He said in the name of improving navigation, private parties choose just about any location and create huge holes in the riverbed without any regard for environmental impacts.
"For example, instead of dredging the Gomti, there are two dams upstream -- if you release waters from the dams, the navigation would be easier," he added.
"In Chandpur, there are 315 bulkheads that remove 50-60 lakh cubic feet sand from the riverbeds every day. While we stop fishing to protect breeding hilsa, we don't see the same level of initiative to stop dredging even though this is hurting the same fish. This is caused by legally allowed sand-mining; none of this is illegal," said Md Mokhlesur Rahman Chowdhury, project coordinator at Center for Natural Resource Studies.
Meanwhile Nahid Hasan, president of Gono Committee from Chilmari upazila spoke about how the ponds are being filled up with sand from the Brahmaputra even though there are no legally declared mines. "There is vast sand-mining going on without any lease from the government," he said.