Dostęp otwarty
WETLAND ECOSYSTEMS SUSTAINABILITY: POLLUTION CONTROL IN BANGLADESH CULTURE
Amzad HOSSAIN1, Tanha MAHJABEEN2, Dora MARINOVA3
Towards a Sustainability Culture
Język publikacji: angielski
Artykuł w czasopiśmie
Transformacje Nr 3-4 (98-99) 2018, Data publikacji: 8 grudnia 2018r.
Słowa kluczowe: Baul mystics, bioremediation, eco-spirituality, Green Revolution, resilience, self-reliance
Streszczenie The wetland ecosystem health of tropical Bangladesh is sustainable with bio-pollution. The Green Revolution generated chemical inputs and topsoils slip into wetlands that pollute and silt them during the lean seasons when water level shrinks. Waters become non-useable, species degrades, people dependent on wetland resources suffer, and the eco-spiritual value of the wetlands deteriorates. Integrating literature and field experience, the paper reveals how rural people traditionally understand pollution and control it. Increasing silting and climate change impacts such as untimely or insufficient rainfall appear to intensify pollution too much to address with traditional remedy. The paper depicts how the contemporary initiatives of sustainability practitioners including elders, Bauls, NGOs, government agencies and common people come together to address pollution. Local elders reveal bio-remedial means, the Bauls promote eco-spirituality, NGOs conduct education and training, and government agencies engage villagers to re-excavate the silting wetlands in order to sustain healthy soil-base and biodiversity, including small fish and water plants as the biosystem remedy to pollution. The Bauls also emphasise eco-friendly modernisation. In sum, what makes people care about the sustainability of wetlands in Bangladesh is informed by their spirituality, but sustainable development policy measures are also needed to guide them.
Curtin University Sustainability Policy (CUSP) Institute; guest teacher at the Institute of Biological Science, Rajshahi University, Bangladesh
E-mail: A.Hossain@curtin.edu.au
Curtin University Sustainability Policy (CUSP) Institute
Deputy Director of the Curtin University Sustainability Policy (CUSP) Institute