Most people are blithely unaware of the damages inflicted by extensive and indiscriminate urbanisation. Over half a century of efforts of making agriculture more industrial have given us a near autarchy in food but at a terrible environmental price. Very few people are aware that a hurricane is churning up the Bay.
We benefit from using pesticides wholly based on poison which help us exterminate insects, but as scientists say that this is symptomatic of a future of "biodiversity oblivion". Extinction of species is a natural process, but we humans have expedited it. Things that were supposed to happen in thousands of years, we are making it happen in a few decades. Therefore, we need to see biodiversity conservation as a moral obligation, irrespective of its role in Nature.
There had been isolated protests, but an organised movement is yet to crystallise on depletion of our ecosystems. For the past few decades we have been destroying our biodiversity through aggressive urbanisation, and the populations of birds, butterflies and wild flowers have been diminishing.
Conservation specialists have come to understand the magnitude of the loss, but for the public at large, and indeed for most politicians, it is simply not on the radar. We are facing a sort of mass cognitive dissonance, a nationwide unawareness of what is happening. For example, in the recent past, few cared about insect decline, because people in general do not care about insects, but the numbers are becoming too big to ignore.
With our step into 2018, we have many encouraging indicators to be proud of. We have had a consistent GDP growth of around 6.0 per cent over the last five years, our per capita income has risen to USD 1,314 and extreme poor population has declined remarkably. Child mortality has come down to 4.8 per cent and retention rate at primary level is 80 per cent. But the extent of depletion in environment has surpassed them all.
Bangladesh is biologically very diverse with its geographical location, deltaic structure, and sub-tropical climate that have made it a home to about 4,200 plant species, 133 species of mammals, 711 species of bird, 174 species of reptile, 64 species of amphibian, 270 species of freshwater fish, and 4,500 species of invertebrate and 305 butterfly species. These numbers are just amazing since we are talking about a country where on an average 1,100 people live in every square kilometre.
To get us off the road to biodiversity oblivion, we have to proceed with utmost care. Blemishes will have to be reversed with a meticulously formulated environment plan and follow it up with periodic consultations with environment conservation specialists. Political pressure on the government has to be mounted so that it stands by its promises to protect the environment. Ultimately it has to come from the base, since ordinary people's feelings are the beginnings of political will. So the public as a whole must understand how terribly the biodiversity is being destroyed.
We all love a well-watered, well-fruited and a green Bangladesh. Time has come now to retain its greenery through protection of biodiversity. The country may still be green, but much of it has now turned into a lifeless landscape.