Anthropogenic impact on the environment

Dr. Md. Faruque Hossain :
(From previous issue)
The soil is not only a natural container of all chemical elements but also a receiver for all kinds of waste products. Naturally, the soil’s absorption capacity is significantly lost when the soil deteriorates. In addition, soil’s ability to provide nutrients for plants is decreased. When soil is lost, the land becomes barren of natural productivity.
Soil nourishes life through the medium of water. All life on earth requires essential elements that come from soil. These chemical elements move from soil to plants as ions and molecules in a water solution. Even fish and other aquatic life feed on plants nourished by soil nutrients dissolved in water. Soil and water are thus the bases of plant and animal life and therefore of civilization itself. Soil and water deterioration, both of which are occurring in Bangladesh, are consequently a deterioration of the very foundation of civilization.
Soil contains the percentage shares of total land area for three different types of land use: arable land – land cultivated for crops like wheat, maize, and rice that are replanted after each harvest; permanent crops – land cultivated for crops like citrus, coffee, and rubber that are not replanted after each harvest; includes land under flowering shrubs, fruit trees, nut trees, and vines, but excludes land under trees grown for wood or timber; other – any land not arable or under permanent crops; includes permanent meadows and pastures, forests and woodlands, built-on areas, roads, barren land, etc.
According to BBS current soil utilization is dominated overwhelmingly by arable land (55%), with permanent crops (3%) and others (42%).
Of all the natural processes, agriculture is one of the main dependents on soil, and thus with the loss of fertile soil, the loss of agriculture will arise.
Agriculture is the single largest producing sector of economy since it comprises about 30% of the country’s GDP and employing around 60% of the total labor force. The performance of this sector has an overwhelming impact on major macroeconomic objectives like employment generation, poverty alleviation, human resources development and food security. Rice, Jute, Sugarcane, Potato, Pulses, Wheat, Tea and Tobacco are the principal crops. The crop sub-sector dominates the agriculture sector contributing about 72% of total production. Fisheries, livestock and forestry sub-sectors are 10%, 10% and 8% respectively.
The extension of urbanization, in essence, is eating up the agricultural land which is already of a limited surface in Bangladesh and represents only 12% of the country’s area. A large part of these lands is situated in suburbs near towns which have been the bases of urban extension. One sixth of these lands are already lost and the remainder follows at a galloping speed. If strict measures are not taken and applied by the authorities, the agricultural sector would be under the threat of disappearance in Bangladesh.
It is not only agriculture that is threatened in Bangladesh; numerous mammals, fish, birds, and wild plants are also threatened with local extinction. There are probably many more species than the short list I will share with you, especially concerning fish. Research is desperately needed, as is constructive, national action.
Two factors of unequal importance affect the disappearance and endangerment of both the flora and the fauna in Bangladesh: loss of habitat and hunting. The first one relates to rapid urbanization, loss of habitat, and habitat alteration. Very often, agricultural work, the use of pesticides, and the drying of swamps, made a great part of the fauna leave the region and lead to their disappearance. Generally, loss of habitat is the primary and overriding factor for species loss worldwide. In Bangladesh, however, such is not the case for it is the savage overhunting that has become the dominant factor in the demise of species. Hunting relates to the individual behavior of the Bangladesh person, hunting being here a factor of the first order in the extermination of existing races in Bangladesh. The use of explosives and water pollution are additional key factors in the endangerment of the fish in Bangladesh.
There are four prime arguments for the preservation of our fellow species. One is simply that compassion demands their preservation. Other products of evolution also have a right to existence. The needs and desires of human beings are not the only basis for ethical decisions. The second point is that other species should be preserved because of their beauty, symbolic value, or intrinsic interest: the argument from esthetics. The third argument is basically economic: preserve species X because Y BDTs can be derived from it. Simply, save this specific species because of its direct economic benefit to Homo sapiens. The most important reason, however, depends upon species’ indirect benefits. Other species are living components of vital ecological systems (ecosystems) which provide humanity with indispensable free service, services whose substantial disruption would lead inevitably to a collapse of civilization.
In Bangladesh’s small territory of 147,570 km-2 (56,977 m-2), nearly 6000 plant species grows, of which 300 or so species are exotic and 8 are endemic. Ninety-five vascular plants have been rated as threatened, of which 92 are angiosperms, and 3 gymnosperms. About 300 species and varieties of algae have been recorded from freshwater habitats alone. There are many more in the brackish water and seawater habitats. The fungal flora has not been fully recorded. There are about 250 species of bryophytes in the country (Reported in Banglapedia, National Encyclopedia in Bangladesh). This richness of the Bangladesh flora is essentially due to the general climatic conditions of the country, as well as to the multiplicity of micro-climates which favored the formations of numerous endemic species. In addition to the numerous flowers particular to Bangladesh, there are species most representative of the South Asia. A great number of flowers were known for the first time in Bangladesh and many bear its name.
Bangladesh is a key area for migrating birds, being both rich in number and variety of migrating birds (388 residents and 240 migratory birds, altogether 628; and also reported in Banglapedia, National Encyclopedia in Bangladesh). Hundreds of soaring birds, especially birds of prey, storks and pelicans, pass through or over the skies of Bangladesh, especially during the autumn and winter migration North America and Africa to Bangladesh. Hundreds of larks migrate through the wetland (bil) valley each year, where they are then prey to the savage hunting.
In Bangladesh, many people are landless and forced to live on and cultivate flood-prone land; limited access to potable water; water-borne diseases prevalent; water pollution especially of fishing areas results from the use of commercial pesticides; ground water contaminated by naturally occurring arsenic; intermittent water shortages because of falling water tables in the northern and central parts of the country; soil degradation and erosion; deforestation; severe overpopulation.
As nature is progressively impoverished, its ability to provide a moderate climate, cleanse air and water, recycle wastes, protect crops from pests, replenish soils that will be increasingly degraded. It is crucial, fundamental to our survival that an intellectual revolution arises with regards to our role in nature. As the great environmentalist, scientist, and writer Rachel Carson said, we still talk in terms of conquest. We still haven’t become mature enough to think in terms of ourselves as a tiny part of a vast and incredible universe.
More specifically, three key sectors need to strengthened and altered. First, environmental education needs to be integrated into the education system in Bangladesh, from kindergarten through college. The fight for the protection of the environment begins with education. The new generation should be raised on the principles of respect and wonder for nature and sciences.
Education goes hand in hand with information, and thus environmental research is critical. Research into pollution issues, agriculture, forestry, and marine biology are all necessary, as are the installation of permanent study plots and the enhancement of our national data base.
Based upon the research, and based upon the current information, the institutional policies need to be reworked. Policies, and thus politicians and leaders, need to take the environment seriously, and laws should then be based on the integrity of the ecosystem. A holistic approach to the ecosystem is necessary in the formation of laws and policies. Ecological integrity, economic stability, and social integrity should all be considered in decision making and in the formation of laws and policies. Once educated laws are produced, they need to be enforced consistently.
To protect the deteriorating environment in Bangladesh, one should help promote a general awakening in the importance of the environment in Bangladesh society. It is not simply a matter of emitting some ideas but truly making people understand, on scientific grounds, that in the absence of a concrete policy in matters of the environment, the future of the natural and socio-economic heritage of Bangladesh will be compromised; the future of the coming generations will be sacrificed.

(Dr. Md. Faruque Hossain (Hossain MF) is currently Professor of American International University-Bangladesh. )
(Concluded)