Stories Of Deltas Struggles For Land & Livelihoods

Mohammad Zaman :
Deltas, often described as cradles of civilization, played an important role as testing grounds for early agriculture and human settlements. Today, over 500 million people live in river deltas around the world. Some of the large and better known deltas are the Bengal delta, the Mekong delta, the Mississippi delta, the Nile delta, and the Yellow River delta. The deltas are endlessly created and recreated through the interaction of rivers and tidal processes, resulting in disruptions in lives and livelihoods of millions, including migration, survival and adaptation both in historical and contemporary contexts.
A new book titled Delta Worlds describes life between land and water in four deltas from a holistic perspective, going beyond the ‘Delta Crisis’ in contemporary context in connection with climate change, sea-level rise and climate refugee issues. Edited by anthropologist Franz Krause and his colleagues at the University of Cologne (Germany), the book truly brings alive life and stories of delta people with amazing photographs and short text/descriptions of local ecology, economy, family and social organizations, community networks, transportation, and in many instances over-exploitation of wildlife and riverine species such as fish, and deterioration of traditional resources and management regimes, some of which go back to the colonial past, and lately due to infrastructure development such as dams/dykes and other physical interventions.
The four deltas considered are lesser known and include Ayeyarwady delta in Myanmar, Mackenzie delta in Canada, Parnaiba delta in Brazil and Sine-Saloum delta in Senegal – deltas that are ‘rarely mentioned’ in the existing literature. The four anthropologists describe life in the river deltas and provide insights into everyday life, including the forces of colonial shadows with regards to land and land rights, shifting terrain, changing way of life and how the delta people as always live together in river deltas. There is a profound sense of the influence of the river along with the uncertainty and dynamics of interaction between water, land and the settlers – i.e., the “hydrosociality”.
The Ayeyarwady delta in Myanmar, long known as the ‘rice bowl’ of the British Empire, is now embroiled in major political and economic strife due to decades of military dictatorship that continues to date. In the delta, the alluvial deposits that appear and disappear give rise to countless disputes between the settlers and their neighboring communities. The communities continue to live on agriculture and fishing; the low-lying delta is increasingly becoming vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, with additional impact due to physical interventions in delta plain land use. The Inuit people in the Mackenzie delta in the Canadian Arctic, known for their fur trade in the early 20th century, now find the land ravaged by oil and gas explorations. Amidst their rich heritage and culture, the Inuit are impoverished and hope for better days.
The Parnaiba delta people in north-eastern Brazil are largely fishermen and cultivators. However, their delta lives, shaped by colonial and post-colonial processes, are evident in the racial and ethnic mix and history of migration, which still is a part of everyday life in the delta. The Parnaiba delta has now turned into popular site for ecotourism. The erosions and drought in the Sine-Saloum delta in Senegal have created new challenges with regard to salinity and livelihood transformation for the delta inhabitants. The rise of potential employment in off-shore oil over traditional fisheries remains a concern for the future.
The book portrays the life and challenges faced by the people in the deltas not from ‘the above’ but a perspective that is much closer to the people, a view from ‘within’ with stories and pictures about their homes, livelihoods, their spirits and myths, and their social and community networks that set the setting for everyday life in the four deltas. This ‘alternative’ approach from within in contrast to the above provides a different understanding of the deltas and constitutes the key strength of the book. In other words, the authors through story-telling force us to rethink about life in river deltas. True, the people face challenges every day in their lived experience, but they also find creative solutions to resolve with resilience. Therefore, the global story of the delta crisis is secondary to the people. The more important story in the Delta Worlds is how people live, organize, and earn a living in their local and living worlds. This is the centrality of the key argument in the book. Thus, the book with photographs and illustrations has effectively communicated the message to the global community.
How does Delta Worlds compare with the Bengal delta? The Bengal delta is the largest in Asia and the world’s most populated delta covering an estimated 100,000 km2 of Bangladesh and West Bengal, India. The active delta roughly covers the deltaic and coastal plains of Bangladesh. The deltaic plain is subjected to regular flooding caused by monsoon, heavy runoff and continuous erosion and accretion of land. My own ethnographic research on the Brahmaputra-Jamuna river delta focusing on the char settlements, economy, social organizations and adaptation to displacement and migration and how these have been historically shaped by the colonial and post-colonial land tenure systems largely echo with the Delta Worlds. From this point of view, the Delta Worlds is a powerful contribution to local and global knowledge on deltas and delta people.

(Mohammad Zaman is an international development specialist and advisory professor at Hohai University,
Nanjing, China).