Climate Fury Shatkhira { 20 images } Created 28 Jun 2013
I have started a self-financed project near the end of March 2011, which is presently on going. Shatkhira – deep inside the banks of the Sundarbans Forest, in Bangladesh. It would be an understatement to say that the region concerned is going through a post-war phase. After the great catastrophic tornado Aila(2007), unemployment and scarcity of food and water was widespread. This horrific misfortune has destroyed the embankments, which separated the Bay of Bengal and the local rivers and lakes – dispensing large quantities of saline water. Continuous high and low tides move the waters around, but unfortunately the soil collaborated with the salinity of the water. My story is based on the by-product of this phenomenon.
The only prospect one can expect to witness in this rural area is the presence of never-ending miles of dead lands, robbed of their fertility. Some regions are always waterlogged. There is water everywhere, but not a drop to drink! The most severe times are the summers and winters, when rainfall is minimum. Preserving some rainwater is lucky, otherwise they have to travel long distances to acquire pure drinking water. This new age has proved to be very devious for the farmers as farming is definitely not an option; so the agrarian nature of the indigenous people has rapidly faded like the dying lands. With nothing to feed their children, the people have picked up shrimp and crab farming. The international market for this is enormous and the people were quick enough to shift their priorities.
However, these farms are gigantic and require lesser manpower. So, this change in occupation only increased unemployment, as many do not posses any land at all and most do not even have the opportunity to farm the shrimps. The other option (sometimes the only option) is to enter the forests of Sundarbans to fish and collect honey; but the jungle is only a synonym for death to these people. Many have died from tiger attacks and many still die also many more injured. The locals refer to some villages as ‘widow villages’. Eventually, one can either be unemployed ; or put their lives in danger by going to the forests filled with hungry tigers.
My project offers me the insights into these helpless people’s lives. I have seen children deprived of their parents and wives deprived of their families. However, when I see the warm glow of hope in some of their eyes, I instantly believe that I am doing nothing. I know that even only by just talking to them I create a thin but existent layer of hope for them.
The only prospect one can expect to witness in this rural area is the presence of never-ending miles of dead lands, robbed of their fertility. Some regions are always waterlogged. There is water everywhere, but not a drop to drink! The most severe times are the summers and winters, when rainfall is minimum. Preserving some rainwater is lucky, otherwise they have to travel long distances to acquire pure drinking water. This new age has proved to be very devious for the farmers as farming is definitely not an option; so the agrarian nature of the indigenous people has rapidly faded like the dying lands. With nothing to feed their children, the people have picked up shrimp and crab farming. The international market for this is enormous and the people were quick enough to shift their priorities.
However, these farms are gigantic and require lesser manpower. So, this change in occupation only increased unemployment, as many do not posses any land at all and most do not even have the opportunity to farm the shrimps. The other option (sometimes the only option) is to enter the forests of Sundarbans to fish and collect honey; but the jungle is only a synonym for death to these people. Many have died from tiger attacks and many still die also many more injured. The locals refer to some villages as ‘widow villages’. Eventually, one can either be unemployed ; or put their lives in danger by going to the forests filled with hungry tigers.
My project offers me the insights into these helpless people’s lives. I have seen children deprived of their parents and wives deprived of their families. However, when I see the warm glow of hope in some of their eyes, I instantly believe that I am doing nothing. I know that even only by just talking to them I create a thin but existent layer of hope for them.
