Rohingya Refugees Strip 4,000 Acres Of Bangladesh Forest Bare In Fight For Survival
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As the refugees poured in through various points along the border, the Bangladeshi military tried to round them up around the existing Kutupalong and Balukhali settlements – in such numbers that they merged into the world’s largest refugee camp.
The weight and rate of that influx has created an additional environmental crisis in Bangladesh’s sensitive border district, stripping away 4,000 acres of forest land, according to numbers from an internal Bangladesh forestry department report shared with Mongabay. Crucial groundwater supplies have also been depleted and contaminated, according to the World Health Organization.
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It is from the west that every day, all day, a constant stream of Rohingya men, as well as some women and children, are found wading through puddles, bowed under the loads of firewood each has to go hunting for several times a week. Eight hundred tons of fuel wood are now needed daily, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The sheer weight of that demand created by the refugees in just the Kutupalong-Balukhali camp’s surroundings – and more spread through other camps – has forced the forests to rapidly recede. That doesn’t include the thousands of babies who will be born in coming months.
The camp’s overwhelming brownness does gradually give way to more greenery on foot-beaten paths that lead away from it, but mile upon mile of vestigial tree stumps and scythed-down shrubbery offer no more than a hint of how far the forest has retreated. What had been a 6-mile round trip when the newest Rohingya refugees first arrived has doubled into 12 miles with entire days spent walking and cutting trees. The route winds on and on, offering no shade from the Bangladeshi dry season’s unfiltered sun. Everywhere there is either someone carrying loads or sat down by the side on one of the numerous breaks they have to take. Barefoot, both men and women wrap themselves in simple pieces of cloth, known as lungis, paired with a vest or blouse and no protection from the elements. Few carry water and some even drink from muddied puddles created a few days earlier by unexpected rains.
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https://news.mongabay.com/2018/01/bangladeshi-forests-stripped-bare-as-rohingya-refugees-battle-to-survive/
