Int'l workshop on 'research methodologies on mangrove ecosystem' opens in Khulna

KHULNA, Jan 27: A two-day international workshop on "research methodologies on mangrove ecosystem" was inaugurated here today in the Khulna University Academic Hall, reports BSS.

Vice-Chancellor of Khulna University Prof Dr S M Nazrul Islam formally inaugurated the workshop with a call to identify appropriate strategies for the sustainable management of the valuable resources of Sundarbans. He said the Sundarbans are important for a variety of forest and non-forest reasons adding that they provide physical buffer against sea water inundation and coastal erosion and are particularly important in a cyclone-prone and low-lying country like Bangladesh.

Presided over by Prof Dr M Saifuddin Saha, Dean of Life Science school of the university and Coordinator of the workshop, the inaugural function was also addressed, among others, by Dr Simon Kay, Deputy Director, the British Council, Dhaka, Simon Bland, First Secretary Fisheries, the British High Commission, Dhaka and Treasurer of Khulna University Abdur Razzaq Sarder. The key-note paper was presented by the Chief Conservator of Forest, Bangladesh Mohammad Golam Habib.

The first day technical session on settlement planning was presided over by Prof Dr Golam Rahman, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology and participated by Dr Mahmoud Hassan and Golam Mostafa.

Discussion was also held on settlement pattern around the Sundarban reserve forest, ethnic background of the people living in the Sundarban mangrove forest and their dependence on the surrounding environment and preliminary modelling for suitable site selection for shrimp culture in south-western part of Bangladesh forest areas. The workshop was being participated by over one hundred educationists, scientists, research scholars and specialists from home and abroad.