WORLD Environment Day is being observed at a time when the environmental hazards facing the country and region are becoming dreadfully large and going beyond management. Bangladesh and the rest of South Asia face multiple dangers and threats, whether it's local level air-pollution or global hazards like global warming. In this environment of pessimism we must search for the positive and the doable.

The bottom line is that environmental disaster has already occurred and what is required is an emergency management strategy. What's more, pure country level strategies will work only partially. It's impossible to protect the future by walking alone.

The government can, however, pay immediate attention to numerous sectors such as air and water pollution, contamination of drinking water sources, waterways destruction, loss of forest land and unplanned urban growth, to name a few. But for even this, there is a need for political will as the polybag ban issue shows. That is the most important ingredient.

In the same vein, the countries and regions affected by international disasters like global warming and ozone layer depletion need to band together to save themselves from various baneful environmental impacts. Some of the harmful effects are well known such as loss of land mass due to sea-rise, increase of natural disasters such as cyclones, loss of crops, rise of old diseases and emergence of new ones and desertification to name a few. But many more wait to be discovered and it would be foolish to think that the nightmare scenario will never occur. It already has.

Yet the worst disaster is the inability of countries to look beyond the borders of the nation states and see that political geography has been overwhelmed by nature. The recent crisis in South Asia shows how weak we are at managing mutual trust and joining together for peace and development. We hope that South Asian leaders will realize the need to work together to manage the environmental crisis if the region wants to survive. That's our prayer and hope on this day.