Action Must Be Taken to Preserve the Coastline

Leaders talk about the huge promise of the blue economy for the country’s economy. At the same time, global warming and climate change bring natural disasters that kill people, destroy crops, damage property and change the population pattern. These pressures on the economy and daily life of the affected countries rise at an unusual rate. This is not a new or sudden issue, as the world has discussed the challenge of global warming and climate change for a long time.

But the countries that are mostly responsible fail to take proper and effective steps. Industrialized nations expanded production that depends too much on fossil fuel and raised carbon emissions at an unusual rate. This put the weather, public health and the social and economic safety of the whole world at risk. Their failure and carelessness in keeping their promises to cut emissions and losses is a big reason for this harm.

The richest and most industrialized countries cause the threat, and poor and least developed countries like Bangladesh face most of it. Bangladesh has a very high population density, so tens of millions of its people live in coastal areas. Hundreds of thousands of fisher families on the coast must fight natural disasters to survive. Coastal communities are already becoming victims of disasters from global warming and weather change, before we make and carry out a proper plan to use our huge and unexplored sea resources for public welfare.

A recent report from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) says that countries in Asia and the Pacific that depend heavily on sea resources now face serious harm. Rising sea levels and other changes in the land and sea cause this harm. The ADB published the report under the title “Asia Pacific Climate Report 2026: Coastal Risks on the Rise, Actions for a Resilient Future.” It warns that yearly flood losses in the region may grow at least six times the present level by 2050.

The report says that coastal losses will keep rising step by step if the countries do not take effective steps now. ADB experts believe that enough investment in adaptation can meet much of this challenge. Our own innovators and farm scientists have already shown the great promise of growing rice that can stand salt. We can cut losses by a good margin if we expand and protect the coastal green belt, and if we improve disaster management and weather forecasts with trusted technology.

We can also raise the economic promise if we plan the use of sea resources well. Bangladesh has about 150,000 square kilometers of land with limited farm land and natural resources. Its population of about 180 million puts a big economic pressure on that land. On the other hand, the country has a coastal and sea area of 118,000 square kilometers that is rich in fish, herbs, oil, gas and other resources. A safe coast can help build the rich Bangladesh we want.

Much of the economic promise of Bangladesh depends on two things. The first is to face natural disasters in Cox’s Bazar, Maheshkhali, Kutubdia, Saint Martin and other coastal areas. The second is to use the sea resources of these areas in the right way.

The special economic zone in the Bay of Bengal still remains unused and unexplored. Bangladesh took no effective step to develop this sector until it settled its sea border disputes with neighbors India and Myanmar. At the start of the last decade, an international court set the sea borders and settled the disputes. India and Myanmar then rushed to sign lease deals with multinational companies and began to take oil and gas from their blocks, but Bangladesh has still done nothing in its part.

The former Awami fascist government made big talk about the victory at sea, but it did almost nothing to collect the resources or use them for public welfare. A Chinese observation satellite also caught a large scale gas theft from Bangladesh through underground pipes. For a long time, India has taken hundreds of millions of cubic feet of gas from the Bay of Bengal near the sea border of Bangladesh. The dispute was settled about a decade ago, yet the Bangladesh government took no step against India’s free search and extraction of gas in the border areas of the sea.

If the government had taken effective steps then, the country would not face the power and energy crisis it faces now. The government of that time was subservient to India and took no initiative on this matter. Instead, it made the energy sector depend heavily on imports and on others. The government also did not take enough steps to face natural disasters that come from changes in climate and weather.

The coastal green belt suffered huge losses in the last two decades, and the government took no new step to make up for them. The policies, action plans and preparations of the government are very weak in several areas. These include protecting coastal embankments, stopping river erosion, stopping salt water from entering the land, and facing the yearly crop losses in the haor areas. The country also needs many kinds of steps against the different effects of the water aggression of a neighboring country.

ADB Director of the Investment and Sustainable Development Department, Mr. Yevgeny Zhukov, calls the coastal areas of the countries in Asia and the Pacific the heart of their economies. The big promise of the blue economy is one side of the picture. The rise in sea level and the spread of salt water into inland rivers is a very big challenge on the other side. Bangladesh must take special steps with high priority to face this situation, and it must start at once to carry out projects such as the Delta Plan and the Teesta Master Plan.