Biodiversity under threat at Kuakata sea beach in Patuakhali

Barishal Correspondent :
Polythene and plastic spread on beaches is not only destroying the environment, but also making the biodiversity of the sea area under threat at Kuakata sea beach in Patuakhali .
Asifur Rahman, a tourist visiting from Dhaka, regretted seeing plastic waste everywhere and said; Kuakata is such a beautiful place. Everything is pretty nice, but there is a lot of plastic waste in Kuakata beach which bothers us a lot.
Another tourist named Nirupoma Dey came from Cumilla said, we come here from the city in search of a beautiful environment, a beach surrounded by natural beauty. But come to see the opposite picture. Everyone needs to be more aware of these problems in such a beautiful place.
Ruman Imtiaz Tushar, President of Tour Operators Association of Kuakata (TOWAC) thinks that the poor condition of the beach is due to their used polythene, empty bottles. Kuakata Beach has a variety of street food stalls. Consumers throwing wastes everywhere due the negligence of local businessman and tourists. He also said that to keep the beach clean, we have trained about 10-12 businessmen of the beach through Bangladesh Tourism Board at different times and yesterday we placed about 200 trash bins at different points under the initiative of Towak.
 If the Kuakata Beach Management Committee pays more attention to the beach then it is possible to keep the beach clean, he added.
Abdul Khalek, assistant superintendent of Tourist Police Kuakata Zone, said, we warn repeatedly by micing so that garbage is not to be thrown on the beach. Apart from this, once a week we conduct a cleaning campaign. But if the municipal authorities employ wholetime cleaners to clean the beach then this problem may be solved.
Kuakata Municipality Mayor Anwar Howladar said, the municipality members and employees are working together to keep Kuakata beach clean. Some of our teams clean the garbage in the morning and afternoon. But due to some unwary tourists and businessmen this problem continues.
Kalapara Upazila branch of Bangladesh Environment Movement Association (Bapa) General Secretary Mejbah Uddin Mannu told Kuakata is a tourist center and attracts millions of people every year as Kuakata beach is built along the shores of the Bay of Bengal. But marine life is threatened by excess plastic waste. Due to which hundreds of whales, dolphins, turtles, king crabs and other aquatic animals die every year.
Member secretary of Kuakata Beach Management Committee and Kalapara UNO Shankar Chandra Boidya said the problems of cleaning and overall development of Kuakata Beach has been discussed with the higher authorities. We will take action soon.
Barishal’s environment the most vulnerable in coming days
Barisal’s environment is among the most vulnerable in the coming days. Everyone should work together to protect the environment and neighborhood.
Speakers of the Bangladesh Environment Movement (BAPA) Barishal Divisional programme said this in a meeting with representatives of various upazilas, districts and regional committees at the BDS Auditorium recently
In the departmental meeting, the general secretary of the central executive committee of BAPA, Sharif Jamil, said that power plants have been installed on three-time cultivable crop lands in Kalapara upazila under Patuakhali district of Barishal division. The water-melon cultivation of this area is getting destroyed.
The most worrisome is the sanctuary of Hilsa in Ramnabad River. But next to this asylum, more and more power stations are constructing. Four billion taka worth of hilsa is sold in this region alone. Millions of people are connected with it. If hilsa production is disrupted, people will lose their livelihood.
Sharif Jamil further said that there are rivers around Barishal, but this city is a victim of water logging and flooding. This situation has arisen due to our unplanned development.
A tanker carrying more than 11 lakh tons of fuel has already sunk in Bhola, but we are not able to rapidly salvage such types of vessels and save environments from pollutions after accidents, he added.
Other speakers noticed that shoals are emerging in middle of our mighty rivers and even our coast lines as rivers flowing from upper streams carrying huge silt depositing those at the lower streams like the southern region. Bridges constructed over the mighty rivers, silts also depositing surrounding those bridges, but none noticing that. Round the year capital dredging needed, but only seasonal maintenance dredging is doing here.