Keeping wetlands safe

Ecology and Bio-diversity of the Tanguar Haor
A Unique Wetland of Bangladesh
Dr. Khandoker Azizul Islam

BANGLADESH'S geography, indeed its physical features, has historically given it certain unique characteristics. In winter, its soil comes close to being rock-like. Again, during the long spell of the monsoon, the softness you feel in the mud, both in the field and in your homestead, gives the land a clear feel of the tender. If you add to all that the floods and cyclones which have almost regularly battered the country, you understand perfectly well the deltaic nature of the land.
It is some special features of the country Khandoker Azizul Islam focuses on in the work under review. To be sure, he eschews the sentimental, or call it the poetic, in his attempt to explain the ecology and bio-diversity of the land. He does not, of course, presume to be educating readers on the environmental issue, as he sees it, on a national scale. What he does is zero in on a region known as the Tanguar Haor and situated in the north-eastern region of Bangladesh to explain the overall nature of the country's wetlands. The sub-title of his work hints at the idea the writer means to throw readers' way. He calls it 'A Unique Wetland of Bangladesh'. Tanguar Haor happens to be a prime instance of Bangladesh's wetlands, with characteristics which clearly exercise the minds of environmental experts as also other sections of society.
There is a degree of affluence about Tanguar Haor you cannot miss, or ought not to. Islam gives you some bare facts right at the beginning of his work. Of the 264 species of freshwater fishes in Bangladesh, no fewer than 130 can be traced to Tanguar Haor. Now, that obviously points to the diversity of nature symbolized by the region. When you bring in such other factors as migratory birds and with these birds a broad canvas of vegetation characteristic of the region, it is a feeling of pristine nature that you experience vicariously through the expressions of the writer. Nature demonstrates its presence through figures: Tanguar Haor is home to altogether fifty one beels, or water bodies, spreading across a total area of 9,727 ha.
Dr. Islam proceeds, apart from coming forth with a geographical description of the wetlands, to a discussion of how Tanguar Haor is being preserved and protected through a community approach to its security and survival. Projects have been initiated towards ensuring an undisturbed existence of the haor, especially against a background of the many threats that Tanguar Haor is currently faced with. Those threats come in the form of a swift degradation of natural resources; extreme exploitation of haor resources, introduction of exotic fishes that in the end could do more harm than good.
Khandoker Azizul Islam's extensive research on wetlands has surely paid off. And the gist of that research is simple enough: the wetlands give Bangladesh breathing space and because they do, it is of critical importance that Tanguar Haor draw the attention of environmentalists and political quarters in the interest of its survival.  Islam draws a graphic sketch of the wetlands, the better to ensure endless public attention towards its need for survival.

Syed Badrul Ahsan is with The Daily Star