Washington Post In Flood-Prone , a Future That Floats

By Emily Wax Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday, September 27, 2007; Page A01 and A22

BY ABIR ABDULLAH FOR THE WASHINGTON POST Boat schools in Bangladesh give students access to education during flooding, which has grown worse because of warming. The low-lying country is particularly vulnerable to climate change.

SINGRA, Bangladesh -- With most of his school under floodwaters, 6-year-old Mohamed Achan pulled his oversize tomato-red shorts up around his tiny waist, placed a tarp over his head to guard against the rain, and sprinted barefoot to the edge of his muddy village. There, he waited for his classroom to arrive -- in a boat.

The boats plying the rivers and canals here in northeastern Bangladesh are school bus and schoolhouse in one, part of a 45-vessel fleet that includes library boats. There are plans for floating villages, floating gardens and floating hospitals as well, in case more of this region finds itself under water.

Like a scene out of the 1995 post-apocalyptic movie "Waterworld," in which the continents are submerged after the polar ice caps melt and the survivors live out at sea, the boat schools and libraries are a creative response to flooding that scientists largely agree has been worsened by global warming.

BY ABIR ABDULLAH FOR THE WASHINGTON POST Mapia, 24 conducting a lesson with children on board a boat school, says that her students “love going to classes on a boat.”

Melting glaciers in the Himalayas are already causing sea levels to rise here, and scientists say Bangladesh may lose up to 20 percent of its land by 2030 as a result of flooding. That Bangladesh is among the most vulnerable countries on the planet to climate change is a tragedy for its 150 million people, most of whom are destitute. The need for a Bangladeshi Waterworld, experts say, has never been more urgent.

"For Bangladesh, boats are the future," said Abul Hasanat Mohammed Rezwan, an architect who started the boats project here and who now oversees it as executive director of the nonprofit Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha, a name that means self-reliance. "As Bangladeshi citizens, it's our responsibility to find solutions because the potential for human disaster is so huge. We have to be bold. Everyone loves land. But the question is: Will there be enough? Millions of people will have nowhere to go."

Climate change is the latest cause celebre in the West, the focus of Live Earth rock concerts and celebrity-endorsed campaigns to reduce the greenhouse gases that have caused temperatures to rise worldwide.

Fighting global warming in the means cutting down on air-conditioning usage or relying more on mass transit. But in Bangladesh, global warming means that children like Mohamed Achan are going to school on modern-day versions of Noah's ark. And, as their villages erode and become smaller and smaller islands, the children and their families may eventually live on a boat.

While Mohammed and his parents have contributed little to climate change -- they have neither a car nor electricity -- it is families like theirs that suffer the consequences of the increasingly violent storms and deadly cyclones that scientists have attributed to global warming.

Bangladesh has always been a world capital for natural disasters. The flat country is barely above sea level and sits atop a low-lying river delta, the world's largest. It's also nestled amid some of Asia's largest rivers, including the and the Jamuna-Brahmaputra.

While melting glaciers have led to rising sea levels, so too have unusually heavy rains in recent years. Floods are damaging Bangladesh's breadbasket regions in what may be the worst threat of all to a population that depends on small-scale farming for food, experts say.

Scientists in , the capital, predict that as many as 20 million people in Bangladesh will become "climate refugees" by 2030, unable to farm or survive on their flooded land. The migration has already started. In 1995, half of Bhola Island, Bangladesh's biggest island, was swallowed by rising sea levels, leaving 500,000 people homeless.

"The economic loss for farmers will just be devastating," said MD Shamsuddoha, a scientist in Dhaka who has studied flooding issues in coastal areas. "We're already seeing hundreds of thousands of climate refugees moving into slums in Dhaka. What will happen when things really get bad?"

The crisis is made worse by Bangladesh's long history of weak and corrupt governments. Farmers who lose land in flooding often fight with neighbors over what is left after floodwaters recede. As a result, land disputes have backed up the courts in recent years, accounting for 80 percent of Bangladesh's legal suits, said Atiq Rahman, executive director of the Bangladesh Center for Advanced Studies and one of the country's top climate-change experts.

"If you're a poor farmer and your village floods, you just can't slap down a credit card and move to Washington. My challenge to the big polluting nations like the U.S., China and is that for every hundred thousand tons of carbon you emit, you have to take in a Bangladeshi family," Rahman said, only half-kidding as he stood before a map in his office, pointing to land that would be submerged in coming decades. "We have so many things to consider, including learning to live on boats. It will be a huge cultural headache. It won't work for everyone and in some ways is a band-aid to the larger problem. But every last drop and every creative idea will help."

Rezwan, a bookish and energetic man who wears sturdy work boots, has already been recognized for the creativity of his school boats. Former U.S. vice president Al Gore recently presented him with an international environmental award for his use of solar power on the boats.

As a child, Rezwan said, he was always frustrated when school was canceled during monsoon flooding.

"Later in life, as an architect I was asked to design for the rich," he said as he climbed aboard one of his boat schools on a recent rainy Saturday. "But I thought, why can't an architect design exciting things to help the poor in their own communities? I can't tell you how happy I was the day the first boat school took the waters. It was really my dream."

Rezwan started his nonprofit group in 1998 with just one flat-bottomed boat built from local materials and stretching about 30 feet long and 15 feet wide. Today, his boats fit about 60 young people -- 40 on the deck and about 20 on wooden benches set up on the bow.

"At first, I wasn't sure -- go study on a boat?" said Nasrin Sultana, 18, a college student whose classes on dry land have been canceled because of constant flooding this year. "But now I am addicted to the boat library. They have computers, academic books and great novels. People love coming. It's become a community center that people look forward to."

The boat schools are made possible partly by an award of $1 million in 2005 from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, along with funds from the Washington-based Global Fund for Children.

That money helped Rezwan set up hugely popular Internet services -- including live chats with scientists -- and design a solar-powered lamp that he gives out to families so their children can study at night. Without the lamps, parents would have to burn polluting and expensive kerosene.

Along the winding river canals that flow around the mud-hut villages, mosques and rice fields here, 230 miles northeast of the capital, the boat schools are so loved that crowds of children cheer upon seeing them dock.

The boats operate year-round and offer a full primary school education with the same syllabus as classrooms on dry land. They avoid dangerous weather patterns by sticking close to mapped-out routes, typically along more shallow waters near the communities they serve.

The schools serve about 90,000 families in an area covering more than 300 miles, and make three- to four-hour stops six days a week.

"I love the boat so much more than regular school," Mohamed said, swinging his thin legs as he sat on a bench reading a stack of stories. "It's so fun when it comes to your doorstep."

The school boats have also made it easier for girls to attend classes. Before, their parents were reluctant to let them walk long distances to school; now the schools come to them.

Rezwan said he hopes his floating village idea will catch on. He is working on sanitation issues and already trying to develop floating gardens, similar to those in Kashmir. Farmers there found they could build an earth bed of roots and dirt in a lake -- thus enjoying constant irrigation -- and produce huge harvests of vegetables.

Already, villagers say they know their way of life will have to change.

"I'll be ready if this housing project on water works," said Samsun Nahar, 30, a mother with a baby on her hip who came to a boat recently to recharge her solar lamp. "We're so worried about the floods spoiling our crops that we are ready to do anything. Even live on water."

News link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/26/AR2007092602582.html

Agence France-Presse (AFP), a global news agency Bangladesh children flock to school on water

By Helen Rowe AFP Bangladesh Oct 7, 2007

Bangladeshi children taking part in lessons aboard a school boat

NATORE, Bangladesh (AFP) — On a simple wooden boat in a remote part of Bangladesh, school is underway for housemaid Mosa Rita, 7, who has been up since dawn toiling for a few taka in the homes of better-off villagers.

It is now nearly 9:00 pm, but nothing can dim her enthusiasm for her lessons.

Outside, parents and other villagers -- most of them illiterate due to their own lack of schooling -- gather to listen to what the children are learning.

Mosa Rita's father is a fisherman. Her mother is a beggar. The money Mosa Rita earns from her long hours cooking and cleaning is vital to help the impoverished family make ends meet.

But at 6:30 pm each day she heads for the river to be collected by the school boat that has become a lifeline for her and thousands of others like her.

A fifth of this delta nation floods each year, preventing many children in rural areas from going to school. The flooding causes thousands to drop out, condemning them to a lifetime of illiteracy and low-paid work.

Around 4,000 schools affected by this year's floods at the end of July are still closed, while 44 have been totally destroyed, according to the UN children's fund.

School boats like the one that Mosa Rita attends, however, aim to prevent this disruption. They also encourage parents who stop their children receiving an education because they think the schools are too far away.

In addition, evening classes reach out to children who are compelled to work during the day.

Since the school boat started coming to Mosa Rita's village, her parents have begun to hope that there might be a better future for their daughter.

Bangladesh is one of the world's poorest countries with 40 percent of the 144 million population surviving on less than a dollar a day.

Dressed in a ragged floral dress, she recites a long poem and when asked why she likes school says she gets books and pencils free.

"The teachers teach us very well," she says proudly.

The school boat, run by the sustainable development organisation Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha -- winner of this year's Ashden Award for education and welfare -- is one of nine currently operational in the northwestern Chalanbeel region. Six more are being expanded to two levels.

The organisation's founder, Abul Hasanat Momammed Rezwan, started the boat school project with one vessel in 2002 after seeing how some of his own friends and relatives suffered because of lack of education.

-- On the school boats, students dare to dream --

The vessels -- traditional wooden "country" boats covered with rooves -- are all equipped with a computer and lights that run on solar energy.

Twelve library boats also provide computer training and adult classes on subjects such as sustainable agriculture. Twelve more are being expanded.

The boats are also used to deliver thousands of solar-powered lights to villagers.

"If a family uses these lanterns it gives 30 to 35 hours of lighting a week and they don't need to use kerosene which costs at least 50 taka (70 cents) a week," said Rezwan.

As well as saving money, the lamps also enable children to study after dark. Fishermen can work for longer hours and other income generating activities such as sewing can be carried out in the home, Rezwan added.

High school student Shanto , 18, regularly uses a library boat to study and read his favourite science fiction books.

"This boat inspired me. After that, I started to dream," he said, adding that he now wants to go to university.

The vessels are flat-bottomed so they can navigate very shallow water enabling them to reach even the most difficult locations.

"The schools mean the children don't need to go to distant places and the parents are more likely to let them come to the school," said teacher Rashida.

"The parents are happy because they are illiterate because they were denied access to education, but they are now hoping for bright futures for their children," she said.

Farida, 25, the parent of one of the boat pupils, said she had missed out on schooling but was happy her six-year-old daughter was being educated. "It was difficult for my parents to send me to school but now all the facilities are in the village," she said. "I have started planning for my daughter's future education. I want to see her become a doctor or engineer."

News link: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gtvNvk_XnYKAfAeDhdWzwNkOTb1g The Independent (UK)

Bangladesh is set to disappear under the waves by the end of the century

Bangladesh, the most crowded nation on earth, is set to disappear under the waves by the end of this century – and we will be to blame. Johann Hari took a journey to see for himself how western profligacy and indifference have sealed the fate of 150 million peoplewent to see for himself the spreading misery and destruction as the ocean reclaims the land on which so many millions depend.

By Johann Hari The Independent, UK Friday, 20 June 2008

4. Bangladesh's Noah

In the middle of Bangladesh, in the middle of my road trip, I tracked down Abul Hasanat Mohammed Rezwan. He was sitting under a parasol by the banks of a river, scribbling frenetically into his notebook.

"The catastrophe in Bangladesh has begun," he said. "The warnings [by the IPCC] are unfolding much faster than anyone anticipated." Until a few years ago, Rezwan was an architect, designing buildings for rich people – "but I thought, is this what I want to do while my country drowns? Create buildings that will be under water soon anyway?"

He considered dedicating his life to building schools and hospitals, "but then I realised they would be under water soon as well. I was hopeless. But then I thought of boats!"

He has turned himself into Bangladesh's Noah, urging his people to move on to boats as the Great Flood comes. Rezwan built a charity – Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha, which means self-reliance – that is building the only schools and hospitals and homes that can last now: ones that float.

We clambered on to his first school-boat, which is moored in Singra. In this area there is no electricity, no sewage system, and no state. The residents live the short lives of pre-modern people. But now, suddenly, they have a fleet of these boats, stocked with medicines and lined with books on everything from Shakespeare to accountancy to climatology. Nestling between them, there are six internet terminals with broadband access.

The boat began to float down the Curnai River, gathering scores of beaming kids as it went. Fatima Jahan, an unveiled 18-year-old girl dressed in bright red, arrived to go online. She was desperate to know the cricket scores. At every muddy village-stop, the boat inhaled more children, and I talked to the mothers who were beating their washing dry by the river. "I never went to school, and I never saw a doctor in my life. Now my children can do both!" a thin woman with a shimmering heart-shaped nose stud called Nurjahan Rupbhan told me. But when I asked about the changes in the climate, her forehead crumpled into long frown-lines.

AFP/Getty Images

Children step on board a school boat run by the Bangladeshi charity Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha

I thought back to what the scientists told me in Dhaka. Bangladesh is a country with 230 rivers running through it like veins. They irrigate the land and give it its incredible fertility – but now the rivers are becoming supercharged. More water is coming down from the melting Himalayan glaciers, and more salt water is pushing up from the rising oceans. These two forces meet here in the heart of Bangladesh and make the rivers churn up – eroding the river banks with amazing speed. The water is getting wider, leaving the people to survive on ever-more narrow strips of land.

Nurjahan took me up to a crumbling river edge, where tree roots jutted out naked. "My house was here," she said. "It fell into the water. So now my house is here –" she motioned to a small clay hut behind us – "but now we realise this is going to fall in too. The river gets wider day by day."

But even this, Nurjahan said, is not the worst problem. The annual floods have become far more extreme, too. "Until about 10 years ago, the floods came every year and the water would stay for 15 days, and it helped to wet the land. Now the water stays for four months. Four months! It is too long. That doesn't wet the fields, it destroys them. We cannot plan for anything."

When the floods came last year, Nurjahan had no choice but to stay here. She lived with her children waist-deep in the cold brown water – for four months. "It was really hard to cook, or go to the toilet. We all got dysentery. It was miserable." Then she seemed to chastise herself. "But we survived! We are tough, don't you think?"

We sat by the river-bank, our feet dangling down towards the river. I asked if she agrees with Rezwan that her only option soon will be to move on to a boat. He is launching the first models this summer: floating homes with trays of earth where families can grow food. "Yes," she said, "We will be boat- people."

I clambered back on to one of the 42 school-boats in this area. Young children were in the front chanting the alphabet, and teenagers at the back were browsing through the books. I asked a 16-year- old boy called Mohammed Palosh Ali what he was reading about, and he said, "Global warming." I felt a small jolt. He was the first person to spontaneously raise global warming with me. Can you tell me what that is? "The climate is being changed by carbon dioxide," he said. "This is a gas that traps heat. So if there is more of it, then the ice in the north of the world melts and our seas rise here."

AFP/Getty Images

Floating hope: children practise their computing skills on board the school boat

I asked if he had seen this warming in his own life. "Of course! The floods in 1998 and 2002 were worse than anything in my grandfather's life. We couldn't get any drinking water, so the dirty water I drank made me very sick. The shit from the toilet pits had risen up and was floating in the water, but we still had to drink it. We put tablets in it but it was still disgusting. What else could we do?"

Mohammed, do you know who is responsible for this global warming? He shakes his head. That answer lies a few pages further into the book. Soon he, and everybody else on this boat, will know it is me – and you.

Complete report can be downloaded: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/bangladesh-is-set-to-disappear-under-the-waves-by- the-end-of-the-century--a-special-report-by-johann-hari-850938.html

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ()

Bangladesch versinkt Ein Schiff wird kommen

Von Tom-Felix Jöhnk Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung September 15, 2008

Shapla Khatun hebt ihr rotes Kleid, balanciert über einen schmalen Bambussteg und ist angekommen: im schwimmenden Klassenzimmer. Es ist acht Uhr morgens in Gurudaspur, im Nordosten Bangladeschs. Shapla geht in die dritte Klasse der Bootsschule. Der jährliche Monsun hat eingesetzt. Die staatliche Schule, neunzig Minuten Fußmarsch entfernt, steht, wie jedes Jahr um diese Zeit, unter Wasser und ist unbenutzbar. Noch ein paar Wochen, und das Schmelzwasser aus dem Himalaja wird die Hälfte des Landes durchtränken.

Shapla gefällt es hier auf dem Boot. Denn die Schule kommt zu ihr. Sie mag die Lehrerin, der Unterricht ist besser als in der staatlichen Schule und umsonst. Ihr Vater - er hat zwei weitere Töchter und fünf Söhne - arbeitet in den umliegenden Reisfeldern. Er verdient knapp einen Dollar am Tag. Am Wochenende stöbert Shapla in der Bibliothek, die nur unfern von ihrer Wellblechhütte vor Anker geht. Sie sagt, sie will Ärztin werden.

Sculer an Bord: In Gurudaspur im Nordosten Bangladeschs Kommt die Schule auf dem Wasser zu den drittklassern. Der Unterricht im Boot ist Kostenlos, der Computer wird mit Solarstorm betrieben. Foto Tom-Felix Jöhnk

Der „ground zero“ der Erderwärmung

Der Unterricht beginnt pünktlich. Bangla wird gelehrt. „Mit wem vergleicht der Autor der Geschichte das Dorf?“, fragt die Lehrerin. Die Schülerinnen antworten im Chor: „Mit unserer Mutter.“

Die Zukunft des Mutterlandes, so scheint es in Bangladesch, einem Flussdelta etwa doppelt so groß wie Bayern mit einer Bevölkerung von hundertfünfzig Millionen Menschen, liegt auf dem Wasser. Der United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) prophezeit, dass Bangladesch im Jahre 2050 etwa ein Fünftel seiner Landmasse verloren haben wird. Als Folge des Klimawandels und eines steigenden Meeresspiegels. Die Bevölkerung des Landes wird zu diesem Zeitpunkt auf zweihundertfünfzig Millionen Menschen angewachsen sein. Schon im Jahre 2030 sei mit zwanzig Millionen Klimaflüchtlingen zu rechnen, sagt Atiq Rahman, ein führendes Mitglied des IPCC. Für ihn besteht kein Zweifel: Bangladesch ist der „ground zero“ der Erderwärmung.

Hier gibt es keine Elektrizität, kein Abwassersystem und keinen Staat

Bangladeschs führender Klimawissenschaftler zählt die schon heute sichtbaren Folgen des Klimawandels auf. Die Versalzung des Bodens sei im Süden des Landes in den letzten Jahrzehnten rapide vorangeschritten. Die größte Insel, Bhola, ist in den letzten zehn Jahren um die Hälfte geschrumpft. Steigende Meeresspiegel werden etwa ein Fünftel des Landes im Golf von Bengalen verschwinden lassen. Er gibt zu bedenken, dass neueste Erkenntnisse über die Geschwindigkeit der Abschmelzung der Polarkappen diese Vorhersage heute konservativ erscheinen lässt. Die Häufigkeit und Schwere der Überschwemmungen sowie die damit verbundene Landerosion durch die zweihundert Flüsse des Landes werden weiter zunehmen. Die Zerstörungsgewalt von Megazyklonen - wie zuletzt in Bangladesch und Myanmar - werde immer heftiger. Und so werde das Salzwasser weiter ins Landesinnere gedrückt, mit fatalen Konsequenzen für Bevölkerung und Landwirtschaft.

Mit der großen Flut im Anmarsch mahnt Abdul Hasanat Mohammad Rezwan, der Gründer der Bootsschule, zum Umzug auf das Wasser. Zu Anfang seiner Karriere baute Bangladeschs moderner Noah Häuser für die Elite in der Hauptstadt Dhaka. Vor sechs Jahren dann gründete der Architekt Shidulai Swanirvar die Nichtregierungsorganisation Sangshta (Eigenständigkeit) in seinem Distrikt Natore. Noch heute gibt es in dieser abgelegenen Gegend, durchzogen von unzähligen Seitenarmen des Brahmaputra, keine Elektrizität, kein Abwassersystem und keinen Staat. Seine Organisation hat heute eine Flotte von zweiundvierzig Bootsschulen, Arztpraxen, Transportbooten, Booten, auf denen Bauern nachhaltige Landwirtschaft lernen, und Bibliotheken.

Boote für den schwimmenden Ackerbau

Shidulais Chefbibliothekar, Maksudar Rahman, sagt, er wisse noch nicht, wie die Bücher auf die extreme Hitze und Feuchtigkeit reagieren. Die Schüler jedenfalls behandeln die Bücher mit großer Sorgfalt. Die Dorfbewohner betrachten die Bibliothek als Attraktion und ihr Eigentum, sagt Maksudar. Für die meisten hier sind die Mobiltelefone und mit Solarenergie betriebene Computer an Bord der Bibliothek die einzige Berührung mit dem 21. Jahrhundert. Die nächste geteerte Straße ist weit weg, Kühlschränke gibt es nicht, das nächste Kohlekraftwerk befindet sich im benachbarten Indien.

„Die Klimakatastrophe ist hier längst angekommen“, sagt Rezwan. Die Wissenschaftler prophezeien einen dramatischen Einbruch der Reis- und Weizenernte, bis zu dreißig Prozent der heutigen Produktion. Das Massensterben scheint programmiert. Rezwans nächstes Projekt sind Boote für den schwimmenden Ackerbau und Hausboote für Klimaflüchtlinge: „Ich arbeite gerade an dem Design der Boote. Wir brauchen mehrere Decks.“

Hier war einmal sein Dorf - und hier seine Felder

Doch der sich jüngst beschleunigende Albtraum ist älter als das Phänomen Klimawandel. Die Liste der zum Alltag gewordenen Umweltkatastrophen in Bangladesch - Überschwemmungen, Dürre, Abforstung, Zyklone, Grundwasserverseuchung und Landerosion - ist lang. Erst vorige Woche hat die Erde hier wieder geruckelt. Die Folgen eines großen Erdbebens sind nicht auszudenken. Vor dem letzten großen Beben, im Jahre 1782, floss der Brahmaputra, der zweitgrößte Strom dieser Erde, noch östlich von Dhaka.

Heute fließt er drei Autostunden westlich der Hauptstadt. Sein nächstes Opfer ist Sirajganj, eine Stadt mit zweihunderttausend Einwohnern am Ufer des fünfzehn Kilometer breiten Flusses. In den letzten Jahren hat sich der Brahmaputra hier mit wütender Geschwindigkeit westwärts gefressen. Bis hinein in die Stadt, die nun mittels eines hastig erbauten Erdwalls vor dem Versinken gerettet werden soll. Am Rande der Stadt zeigt Mohammad Nurul Islam auf sein Heimatdorf. Zu sehen ist es nicht mehr: Der Strom hat es verschluckt. Sein Ackerland hat der Bauer erst vor zwei Jahren verloren. Heute ist er Bootsmann und schippert Passagiere über die Stellen, wo früher seine Felder lagen.

Ihr einziger Wunsch ist die Flucht

Ein paar Schritte flussaufwärts versammeln sich die Landlosen in einer Teehütte aus Wellblech. Abdul Mannan sagt, sein Dorf sei vor drei Jahren im Fluss versunken. Er habe davon gehört, dass Wissenschaftler den Untergang des Landes voraussagten. Aus den sechs Jahreszeiten, die man hier kenne, seien zwei geworden - Regenzeit und Trockenzeit. Früher habe ein Blick auf die Wolken genügt, um das Wetter vorherzusagen. „Heute können die Dorfältesten das nicht mehr“, sagt der zweiundvierzigjährige ehemalige Bauer. Was den Fluss angeht, ist er sich nicht sicher, ob der sich heute anders verhielte. Seine Großmutter habe ihm erzählt, der Fluss sei vor fünfzig Jahren einen Tagesmarsch entfernt gewesen.

Die Endstation für die meisten Landlosen ist Dhaka - nach Schätzungen der Vereinten Nationen im Jahr 2015 die zweitgrößte Stadt der Welt. Auch für Jamal: Vor vier Jahren verlor er sein Land in Sirajganj und zog ins Begum Bari Slum am Rande der Hauptstadt. Ein Meer aus Bambusstelzen trennt die Bewohner des Wellblechlabyrinths von der Kloake unter ihnen. Jamal ist abgemagert. Keines seiner vier Kinder geht zur Schule. Die Familie isst zweimal am Tag kitcheri - ein Gemisch aus aufgekochtem Reis und Gemüseresten. Jamals Frau Ratna sagt, ihr einziger Wunsch sei die Flucht aus ihrer Behausung: Sie ist neun Quadratmeter groß. Doch wohin? Kein Land ist dichter bevölkert als Bangladesch. Achtzig Prozent aller anhängigen Gerichtsfälle in Bangladesch haben einen Streit über Grund und Boden zum Gegenstand.

Ein Tausch von „Menschen gegen Kohlendioxid“

In der Hauptstadt sind Grund und Boden so zerstückelt, dass oft nur ein schmales Hochhaus Wirtschaftlichkeit garantiert. Dhakas neueste Errungenschaft dieser Art ist ein Fünfsternehotel, eine Bleibe für Entwicklungshelfer und ausländische Vertreter der boomenden Bekleidungsindustrie. Von der Dachterrasse, hoch über der wild wuchernden Stadt, sieht man eine Freifläche von mehreren Quadratkilometern, in bester Lage. Ein heimischer Konzern mit guten Verbindungen zur letzten Regierung hat hier das Unmögliche geschafft. Die Eigentümer des ehemals zersplitterten Areals habe man vertrieben oder verschwinden lassen, sagt Julfikar Ali Manik, ein Journalist, der monatelang die Machenschaften des Konzerns untersucht hat. Seit einem Militärputsch im letzten Jahr sitzen nahezu die gesamte Regierung sowie die Mitglieder der Konzernspitze im Gefängnis.

Die vom Militär eingesetzte Übergangsregierung hat Klimaschutz zur Priorität erklärt. Auf einer Konferenz in London im September will man die Grundlage für eine Verhandlungsbasis mit den Industrieländern schaffen. Bisherige Modelle des Emissionshandels zur Reduktion des Kohlendioxidausstoßes hält der Klimaforscher Rahman für „unmoralisch“, weil die ärmsten Länder auf der Strecke blieben.

Der ehemalige Professor der Oxford University plädiert für einen Tausch von „Menschen gegen Kohlendioxid“. Die vom Klimawandel am härtesten getroffenen Entwicklungsländer werden ein Stück Land verlangen, habe er Al Gore und Madeleine Albright vor kurzem bei einer Klimakonferenz in Colorado gesagt. „Der Westen muss verstehen, dass wir ein System brauchen, in dem ihr für alle zehntausend Tonnen Kohlendioxid, die ihr emittiert, eine Familie aus Bangladesch bei euch leben lasst. Es ist eure Verantwortung.“

News link: http://www.faz.net/s/RubCF3AEB154CE64960822FA5429A182360/Doc~EF970F3208ADC4EACB F325B664210CA7E~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.html

IRIN News BANGLADESH: Amina Khatoon: "Our village just fell into the river"

By Jaspreet Kindra IRIN Oct 20, 2008

Amina Khatoon Photo: Jaspreet Kindra/IRIN

NATORE, 20 October 2008 (IRIN) - Amina Khatoon, 8, lives in a village on the bank of one of several water channels that feed the Chalan , an oxbow lake in northwestern Bangladesh that lies in a flood-prone region. Bangladesh, which has the largest floodplain in the world, drains the waters of three major river systems originating in the Himalayas — the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna, into the Bay of in the Indian Ocean.

Global warming is expected to increase glacial meltwater from the mountains, swelling the volume of water in the Himalayan rivers and bringing increased flooding to the low-lying plain.

"Three years ago we lived in another village named Dutta Kandi in . There was a lot of rainfall, the river [Jamuna] flooded; there was a lot of water and our village drowned – it just fell into the river.

"At school we learned about river erosion – I think that it was that. We are getting a lot of rain, more and more rain. People also fall sick a lot now.

"My family [father, mother and two brothers] moved up here – I could not go to school because of the floods, but here I can go to school. Our school is on a boat, which comes and picks us up from our village.

"I love the 'Nauka [Boat] School'; I like the things we learn there, about river erosion and about the fish and birds in the village.

"My father died two years ago; my mother works as a day labourer to feed the family. My elder brother, who is 22, also works – he does jobs here and there.

"I want to become like Appah [term for addressing female teachers] when I grow up so I can teach other children like me in villages."

News link: http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=81008

IRIN News BANGLADESH: A floating future

By Jaspreet Kindra IRIN South Africa Oct 20, 2008

Classes on board Photo: Jaspreet Kindra/IRIN

CHALAN BEEL, 22 October 2008 (IRIN) - The air is so heavy with humidity that you can scarcely breathe. But the giggling children, mostly girls wearing salwar-kameezes - the typical tunic and trousers of Bangladesh - waiting along the bank of one of the several rivers that feed Chalan Beel, an oxbow lake in the marshlands of northwestern Bangladesh, seem unaffected.

The monsoon season has not quite drawn to an end and just to prove it, the heavens open in an intense 15-minute downpour. The rain elicits more giggles from the children, who scamper for refuge under the trees lining the bank. Then a solar-powered boat with a sign "Nauka [Boat] School" suddenly appears on the horizon and slows down as it draws nearer to pull up beside the bank.

The dripping children queue to get to their classes on board - a rainy day is not an excuse to play hooky in this part of the world. "Nauka schooley jaye khoob moja hoye [When we attend the boat school, we enjoy ourselves]," a giggling Shakila Khatoon, 9, said in Bengali, or Bangla, the national language.

"It's different from other schools – I really love the Bangla boi [book] – it teaches us things we see in our villages, helps us identify the birds, kinds of fishes, and tells us about river erosion."

Women and older villagers watch the bobbing fishing boats from the bank while they wait patiently to catch the "health boat", the "library boat" or even the "agricultural extension boat", all due to arrive sometime that day.

In a few weeks, some of the landless families in the region might even settle permanently on houseboats lashed together to form small floating villages, with a community boat in between.

Architect-turned-activist Mohammed Rezwan is determined to prove that Bangladeshis can survive the climate change scenario, in which land steadily vanishes beneath relentlessly rising water, by staying afloat. "This is the future - various climate change forecast models have predicted that one- fifth of Bangladesh could be under water by 2050," he said.

The impact of global warming will hit Bangladesh hard. Soaring global temperatures are increasing glacial melt in the Himalayan ranges, swelling the rivers that flow down from the mountains and across the Bangladeshi floodplain, the largest in the world, far beyond their capacity.

The expanding volume of water is also causing higher sea levels to push inland. A rise above one metre, which could be reached in this century, means Bangladesh could lose 15 percent to 18 percent of its land area, turning 30 million people into "environmental refugees" by 2050, according to some estimates, says the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Extreme weather events such as cyclones are also expected to become more frequent and intense as a result of global warming.

Couldn't go to school

Rezwan grew up in the nearby village of Shidhulai and was often unable to go to school during monsoons, when the roads were flooded. "Schools would be closed for months," he commented. In 2007 more than 4,000 primary schools were closed, at least another 4,000 were affected and 44 were washed by river erosion, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) reported.

"When I began studying architecture, I started playing around with the idea of trying to help the children in the region," said Rezwan, now in his early thirties. He homed in on "water and boats".

Water is a way of life for Bangladeshis: more than 150 million people are squeezed into a land area of 144,000 sq km with more than 230 rivers and their tributaries flowing through it. Living on boats seemed like a good idea, said Rezwan.

With about US$500 saved from odd jobs and scholarship money, he convinced friends to pitch in to set up an NGO, Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha (meaning a self-dependant organisation), in 1998 and launched the first boat school in 2002. Since then the organisation has built 90 boats.

It has also collected several awards, notably the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's Access to Learning Award in 2005, the UNDP Equator Prize in 2006 and the UN Environment Programme's Sasakawa Prize for outstanding achievement in 2007.

Locally available materials are used to build the solar-powered boats, with a shallow draft that allows them to glide across flooded land and along smaller streams, while the cane exterior blends in with the rural landscape.

The boats have multilayered waterproof roofs and side windows that can be opened for ventilation. A metal truss takes the weight of the roof so the interior is not obstructed by pillars, allowing room for benches and desks to accommodate 30 to 35 children or adults, library cupboards and reading tables, or a doctor's examination room and a small dispensary.

Each school boat conducts three classes a day along the 250km of interconnected rivers and streams that the organisation covers. Basic primary education up to grade four is provided in the only schools in the country where children can learn the , are taught to identify various fishes and birds, and how to harvest clean water in an area prone to waterborne diseases.

A whole new world

The boats equipped with computers have opened a new world to at least 90,000 families in the region, "especially for girls and women," said Fazila Begum, a subsistence farmer. Girls and women are brought up in conservative and protected households in mainly Muslim Bangladesh, and cannot always travel long distances to attend school or even to see a doctor, particularly in rural areas. "Now we don't even have to step out of the village," Fazila smiled.

Scientists like Samajit Kumar Pal and Yusuf Zai from the Bangladesh Sugarcane Research Institute volunteer their time and expertise in the agriculture extension boats, which present slide shows and films on farming techniques and new varieties of paddy rice. Women farmers like Runa Begum Akhtar also get tips on saving their crops from pests. "The method was so simple; I just had to wash the plant with detergents," said an amazed Akhtar.

A few men also turn up for the classes. "We work in the fields, so it is fine by us for the women to come to the classes - they provide us with the information," said one. "Well, ultimately, we both have to work together - tobhi shonshar chole [that's how households run]," a woman farmer remarked.

The scientists and doctors who volunteer their services said the work provided "immense job satisfaction". "We constantly work on new methods, particularly to address the challenges posed by climate change, such as increased flooding, for farmers but often very little of this information filters down to the farmers - this forum provides us with a direct access to the fields," said Pal.

A quick and easy technique developed by him to help farmers get rid of excess water in fields by boring holes in them to drain the water into an aquifer has saved many crops.

"When tearful and grateful villagers bless you, it makes everything worthwhile," said Mohammed Israel Hossain, a medical doctor who takes time off work and spends his holidays treating villagers along the waterways. He has noticed a rising incidence of viral fever over the past four years, which he associates with increased flooding in the area.

A sustainable future?

So are solar-powered floating villages the future? "Well, the school boats, etc., are a form of adaptation, but I am not sure about the houseboats. It is not really sustainable - solar power requires a tremendous amount of money," said Mohammed Shamsuddoha, general secretary of the Equity and Justice Working Group, a network of NGOs.

The solar-powered boat school Photo: Jaspreet Kindra/IRIN

But Rezwan has a plan to make the house boats sustainable: his organisation has developed a "solar" lamp costing only $5 to $10, which it hands out to its top students as an incentive. The children bring the lamps every now and then to recharge them from the solar power stored in batteries on the boats.

"Building on that concept, we plan to sell hurricane lamps for around 500 taka [$7.30] each, and the villagers will have to pay 40 taka [about US $0.60] a month to recharge each lamp on our boats," said Rezwan.

An estimated 78 million people don't have access to electricity and still use kerosene or fossil fuels for lighting, each consuming around 144 litres of fuel per year. Burning kerosene emits at least 2.6kg of CO2 per litre of fuel, so the lamps will decrease this greenhouse gas emission. "It will also save the villagers money spent on kerosene oil," said Rezwan.

His NGO is putting the finishing touches to its pilot three-boat community, with a floating vegetable garden in tow to see if it will work. "We hope to cover the entire country one day," he said.

His organisation is also working with Gonoshasthaya Kendra, an NGO that is the country's second largest health care provider, to electrify health care centres in southern Bangladesh.

An octogenarian villager poring over a philosophical tome in the floating library gave Rezwan's efforts the best endorsement: he said he was getting to live again, and added, "This is very good - I get to read and think."

News link: http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=81044

BBC News Building a secure future in Bangladesh

By Paul Rose BBC presenter July 03, 2009

Bangladesh is the most crowded place on Earth and will become even more impossibly packed in the next 30 years.

Approximately 20% of its land, it is feared, will be lost to the rising waters brought about by climate change.

Today's 150 million Bangladeshis also have to face cyclones and arsenic-contaminated water. About half of the population is illiterate and a third live on less than one US dollar a day.

While others make plans for overpopulation, global warming mitigation and sustainable development, in Bangladesh, it is time for action. And the leadership is coming from within.

BBC presenter Paul Rose has travelled to Bangladesh to meet Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, the pioneer of micro-credit and visionary of hope for the world's poor.

He will also visit villages, field projects, and schools; and talk to the country's leading innovators to report on life at the "front line of sustainable development".

Days 2 & 3: THE ARMADA IS HERE

Heads down and study hard on the school boat

"With these 54 boats, we support 90,000 families," said Abul Hasanat Mohammed Rezwan. "How many people are left to reach?" was my obvious question. "20 million".

I think he might just do it, too; partly because Rezwan, a Bangladeshi architect-turned-boat-builder, has had such great success already, and partly because there is no other choice.

This is the "front line of climate change" and people have to adapt.

This is a connected age

The effect of sea level rise and more unstable weather patterns mean that 20% of the country is going under water in the next 30 years. One of the many striking things about being on the river is that it's blindingly obvious that it's happening now - the forecast water level rise is not just a theory.

I wanted the clatter of the engine to stop so I could soak up the peaceful river-bank life. Women were beating clothes clean, men were meticulously washing cattle and while boys were leaping about and swimming, old men stood neck deep and watched us pass.

Rezwan continued: "These people can't travel for health care and education so the boats bring it to them."

We pulled alongside a school boat and the noise of the engine was replaced by children chanting responses to a teacher. The 30 children were in the middle of a class and totally focussed on their books, the teacher and blackboard.

It was easy to get caught up in the rhythm, smiles and enthusiasm of the class. There is a sense of dedication from the teachers and a matching level of respect from the children.

Obviously proud, Rezwan pointed out the solar-powered computer system - the roof mounted panels feed a set of batteries and via an inverter they power the computers. I checked the web connection and loaded the BBC News website in a few moments.

For every need

Further up river, we came alongside a healthcare boat. And this time, the engine noise was replaced by silence.

About 40 women were queuing down the steep muddy bank, some holding children, older women looking tiny and resilient, young boys hanging around.

‘‘We'll have to live on the water in floating communities, including floating gardens and farms’’ Abul Hasanat Mohammed Rezwan

The only sound was of a softly spoken consultation onboard. The doctor quickly invited me in and told me that this woman had high blood pressure and a lack of energy; and as he prescribed the drugs, the patient moved to the prescription table, was issued the pills and her medical records updated.

Without any delay the next patient was onboard and with the doctor. Free healthcare delivered to a remote village - I didn't need to understand any Bangla to see what it meant to these people.

Rezwan explained the boats are built locally, some have engines and others are towed. All of them have solar power systems and his design without central supports and careful use of local materials ensures that the workspaces are maximised.

Sun power

This was especially clear at the next boat which was the two-storey library boat. The lower deck had bookshelves along each side, a circular study table also designed by Rezwan and the computer system at the forward end.

The top deck was an airy study area and more stacked bookshelves. I asked a teenaged reader what she thought of the library. Rezwan translated: "I love to study here and take books home."

Rezwan: We're bringing services to the people

I then asked if she read for fun as well as school studies. She laughed: "I enjoy the books for their knowledge!" Along with her friends she laughed even more with embarrassment when she mistakenly shook my offered hand as I left.

I totally forgot that in these remote and traditional communities men and women do not get that close in public.

I was on safer cultural ground on the next boat as it was the technical support boat and even I couldn't make social gaffs with solar power, batteries and solar lights.

Rezwan's non-profit organisation, Shidhulai, also provides these solar lights free of charge. I was happy that the technician took only a quick break from his soldering to show me the charging system and solar units, as he had people waiting to swap their flat batteries for charged ones.

Women queue patiently for an appointment on a Bangladeshi health boat

It's easy to see how essential this free service has become - these simple solar units are the only light source available.

As we motored further upriver to visit an education boat, Rezwan confidently outlined Shidhulai's climate change adaptation plans: "We'll have to live on the water in floating communities, including floating gardens and farms. In the south, we had floating gardens 400 years ago, so it's nothing new. We'll scale up the system and make it work."

The video conferencing session onboard the education boat was linking an agricultural scientist here at the front of the boat with a distant farmer.

Projected onto the screen for the 40 farmers was both sides of the video call and a display of a pest's life cycle and instructions on killing it without using commercial pesticides.

The two experts were sharing their knowledge and ensuring that the farmers got the information at the same time. Soaking up the very positive and engaging feeling onboard I realised that if anyone can make floating farm communities work, then it was Rezwan combined with that clear determination of the Bangladeshis.

It just has to work. 20 million Bangladeshi climate refugees will be counting on it.

News link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8130130.stm