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NEWS ANALYSIS

Shajahan vs Sundarbans

Sharier Khan
When oil vessel Southern Star-7 sank along with 3.58 lakh litres of furnace oil in the Shela river last week, the whole nation was shocked because the incident threatened the world's biggest mangrove forest that is not just an asset of Bangladesh, but also of the whole world.
There are many mangrove forests in the world but there is just one Sundarbans — home of the Bengal tigers and hundreds of species of plants and animals. This forest has been providing livelihood to lakhs of poor people. But most importantly, this forest has been saving the Southwestern region from cyclones for hundreds of years — serving a significant natural purpose of forming the delta named Bangladesh.
But to ministers like Shajahan Khan, the hue and cry raised by environmentalists and others was just a farce. Shipping Minister Shajahan Khan while visiting the troubled Shela river on Saturday told the press that the oil slick would not harm the Sundarbans. He added that he had spoken to "foreign experts" who believed that there was nothing much to worry about.
The minister's assurance came alongside the government's move to salvage the situation by urging local villagers to collect the floating furnace oil from the water and sell it back to the government. The forest department itself has deployed around a hundred boats to collect the oil and till Sunday—in five days since the disaster—the authorities recovered around 18,000 litres of oil—which is insignificant.
Besides, the BIWTA had thought of using Propylene Glycol Ether—a chemical—to make the oil very dense, so that it can be easily netted. But experts and the environment department dismissed the idea as it would have further harmful effect.
According to the forest department assessment on Saturday, the oil slick has spread across an area of350 square kilometres—affecting the forest and wildlife there. People have cited dead bodies of different animals including a dolphin. Alas, the government has declared the Sundarbans a dolphin sanctuary from 2011. It has around 6,000 Irrawaddy dolphins.
The deaths of wild animals or some trees in the Sundarbans seem insignificant to the shipping minister whose responsibilities include determining the inland water transport routes through the Sundarbans, which borders on Mongla—the second sea port of the country. For the last several years, Shajahan Khan's offices allowed plying of commercial vessels through the Shela and other rivers of the Sundarbans—because the actual route of Mongla-Ghasiakhali channel had lost navigability.
The Ghasiakhali channel was developed in 1974 as a shortcut to Mongla, bypassing the core forest. The route stretches through the Mongla river to Sannyasi to Morelganj to the Baleshwar river. It means: commer-
dally using this route has lesser risk of damaging the Sundarbans. When it became completely unusable, the government had allocated Tk 76 crore to restore the route—but the BIWTA sat on it.
After the disaster, the BIWTA has suspended movement of vessels through the Shela river and has said that it would complete the dredging of the old route within a few months. It took a disaster for the BIWTA to 'consider' the dredging while Minister Shajahan Khan could not care less about the performance of the BIWTA. Instead, on Sunday he announced that it would not be possible to stop commercial vessels from plying through the Sundarbans.
The outskirts of the Sundarbans have already become a target of land grabbers as well as industrialists. In addition to building a very large coal power plant, the government has plans to build an exclusive economic zone, while many private companies have erected signboards declaring upcoming industrial units to be set up there. Once the Rampal plant comes into operation, one can easily predict that the outskirts of the world heritage forest would become an industrial belt. This will bring in jobs and prosperity for the impoverished, disaster-prone region—and perhaps turn people back from the forest for their livelihood. But at the same time, it would increase the risk of a man-made disaster in the Sundarbans a hundred times more.
According to Dr Ainun Nishat, the country's leading hydrological expert, the government did not demonstrate any sense of urgency from the first day till yesterday to address the situation. He said the government could still declare the situation as an emergency and deploy the Navy to clean up the mess as soon as possible.
While nobody can predict when an accident would take place—one can stay prepared for such an incident. Through this oil slick, the whole nation saw the bankruptcy of the government in handling such a disaster. The minister's assurance of "no big damage" is just some hollow words and nobody is convinced by his blank assurance. Instead, the nation would feel better if he had the courage to take the responsibility of overseeing the health of the river routes inside the Sundarbans (and elsewhere) or bringing the BIWIC to the task.