Sunday, February F 19, 2017 http://daiilyasianage.co om/news/489 950/environm ment-and-fatee-of-duty--freee-export-to-eeu
Environme ent and d fate of o duty y free export to t EU M S Siiddiqui
Bangladeesh is enjoyin ng duty free and a quota freee export und der 'Everythin ng but Arms' (EBA) facilitty to the Europ pean Union (EU) ( market.. These facilitties are modeeled to achievve improvem ment in econo omic, social and d governancee of LDCs witthout jeopard dizing the intterest of EU countries. c Th he EU will assess and evalu uate the EBA facility by Seeptember 2017. EU has en ngaged a pro oject team to evaluate and d assess thee status in different LDCss. The team m is conductin ng studies to o analyze the economic, so ocial, environ nmental, and d human righ hts impact off the EBA arrrangements in Bangladesh h. A special focus f will be placed on the effect of thee
EBA arrangement on economic development, poverty reduction and the distribution of gains, as well as possible unintended consequences. By this time a primary evaluation period only spans two years (2014- 2016), the Project Team has found that the number of readily available and up-to-date environmental impact indicators is limited. The environment is a major concern to them since the environment has been deteriorated in the past. The European Union has assessed and presented their observation at the Mid-term Review on 7 February 2017 at Dhaka. Bangladesh PoribeshAndolon (BAPA) has represented in the review meeting for the civil society. The presentation said that -air pollution is at alarmingly high rate, in particular in Dhaka where the recorded share of lead (PB) in the atmosphere exceeds the UN recommended safety levels by a factor of over a 100. Waste management is an increasingly common problem in particular in urban centers as a result of poor industry waste management and the rapid urbanization. In Dhaka, 36.84 per cent of generated waste remains uncollected, leading to serious environmental degradation and health problems. As the third largest garment manufacturer and exporter in the world, the garment industry has a significant negative impact on the environment in Bangladesh. Shrimp and crustacean cultivation also significantly affects the environment in Bangladesh. The Mangroves, agricultural land and rice fields are being used that cause deforestation in coastal areas. It affects the chemical composition of the soil texture, changes the water quality and leads to extensive sediment accumulation due to its impact on the natural water flow. It affects land use by making use of mangroves, agricultural lands and rice fields for the cultivation of shrimps and prawns. This leads to deforestation in coastal areas. It affects biodiversity, both flora and fauna, as a result of the lack of sustainable pond management techniques, lack of enforcement of existing regulations and lack of training and skill development mechanisms. Although, Bangladesh has 7 green textile industries out of 25 green textile industries in the world. The sector includes state-of-the-art, productive, energy-efficient and socially compliant factories but many facilities remain unsafe, non-compliant, and polluting. Disasters like the Tazreen fire in 2012 and the Rana Plaza collapse in 2013, which together took the lives of 1,200 people, brought to light some of the worst examples of multiple regulatory, structural, and management failures. Garments, leather and shrimp are the most important export-oriented sectors of Bangladesh economy. These three sectors together earn more than 80 per cent of the country's foreign exchange. The garment industry in Bangladesh is mainly concentrated in Dhaka and Chittagong. Garments manufacturing plants are scattered almost all over Dhaka City including the residential areas. This has created extra burden on the basic municipal services such as electricity, road, water, drainage waste management etc. Housing for the garment workers, large majority of them are migrants from the rural areas, poses a serious problem. The low-paid female garment workers live in poor dwelling units of the slum areas that lack basic municipal services. As a result, they are exposed to various diseases. The garment industry generates a huge quantity of solid waste including pieces of leftover clothes, plastic materials etc. At the initial stage, the industry appeared as a serious problem in the absence of proper disposal. Shrimp farming and leather industries apart from garments are major polluter of the environment. In the fisheries sector, unplanned shrimp cultivation caused serious environmental damage that has harmed fish and other aquatic biodiversity significantly.
The land under shrimp production is inundated with saline water and the adjoining lands of shrimp farms affected by salinity are not suitable for cultivation of paddy, which requires fresh water. The negative environmental impacts of shrimp culture include: a) increasing salinity and soil degradation, b) deforestation and destruction of homestead vegetation, c) destruction of coastal vegetation, and d) waterlogging leading to irreversible changes in micro flora and fauna. The government study identified the leather industry as more harmful to environment than the textile, medicine, fertilizer and paper industries. The tanneries at Hazaribagh in Dhaka discharge huge quantity of effluents to the nature without treatment. The liquid waste goes to the river Buriganga. Fish resources are adversely affected in few hundred meters of the river. The pollution is not limited to the surface water as it also contaminates the groundwater apart from the atmospheric pollution through bad smell. Farmers lack of training and skill development mechanisms. The shrimp cultivation affects soil and water quality, changes chemical composition of soil texture and water quality, create extensive sediment accumulation. The sector affects air, water and soil quality, deforestation, waste generation and climate change. Increasing deforestation and increased demand for housing and land for agricultural activities as well as vulnerability to climate change causing sea level rise and extreme volatility and increasing number of natural calamities. In addition to the above findings, there are more challenges. The high concentration of lead (PB) in the environment from variety chemicals used in different chemicals and other products based on lead and gasoline, batteries used and also products like paints, ceramics, pigments etc. The compliant Garment industries are now not using any Pigment having lead content but the products sold in local market still have lead contents. Bangladesh has wide use of DDT is a pesticide and cleaning of city areas although there is Pesticide Ordinance of 1971 and Pesticides Rules, 1985. Unfortunately, DDT even used as preservative in dry fish sold in the local consumption. Bangladesh there is no disposal mechanism for PCB waste including the obsolete equipment, waste liquid with PCBs and solid PCB waste (metal, non-metal or soil contaminated with PCBs) generated by the leaks, damaged equipment or remediation and cleaning of facilities and sites contaminated with PCBs, many of these find their way in to the landfills. Ship breaking sites are another threat since they release Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) into the environment. The concerns have grown since this is a growing industry in Bangladesh. The iron and steel, copper, aluminum, copper, lead, zinc, brass, and magnesium; foundries and thermal nonferrous metal production as nickel industries are biggest contributors of dioxins and furans in the environment. The release is largely to air and through residues. Power generation and heating including equipment including power plants are running on fossil fuel, landfill, domestic cooking and heating using biomass and fossil fuels and others. Brick production and cement industry are the largest contributors of dioxins. There are about 100 cement industries and over 6,000 brick manufacturers located near towns or major construction sites. Transport Sector in Bangladesh is one of the predominant sectors in terms of energy consumption. The transportation is largely based on petroleum oils and natural gas. Leaded fuel was banned in 1999. The production and use of chemicals and consumer goods including paper and pulp mills, chemical industry, textile plants, leather industry etc. This category has a high potential to release dioxins. Besides releases to air, their effluents are often discharged into water. All these economic activities encompass the sectors of agriculture, forestry, fisheries, urbanization, industry, transport, tourism,
energy, chemicals etc. Those are responsible for waste disposal including landfills and waste dumps, sewage and sewage treatment, waste disposal in water bodies and disposal of waste oil. The way in which the waste is handled and disposed can affect the formation and release of dioxins. Landfill and waste dumps are a common practice in Bangladesh. These cause leachate and contaminate the soil and water. A World Bank reports mentioned the per capita CO2 Emissions in 2002 it was 0.2 and in 2013 in rose to closed to 0.4. It is increasing although relatively low compared to other developing countries. A further assessment of the environmental impacts by EU team will include: (a) Environmental quality, (b) Waste,(c) Natural resources (including forests, wildlife and fisheries), (d) Biodiversity, (e) Air pollution, (f) Climate change, (g) CO2 and (h) Greenhouse Gasses (GHGs) emission per unit of output, assessment of the extent to which environmental policies foster the protection and sustainable use of natural resources and management of pollution. Forest area as a percentage of land area, tree cover loss and gain, tree cover percentage, deforestation and reforestation rates, LULUCF-related CO2 emissions, carbon stocks. Increased competition for land resources (and potential resource scarcity) between staple crops, commodity crops and livestock; leading to either intensification of crop/livestock production (where inputs are available) or agricultural expansion for increased cropland and grassland (leading to deforestation, soil erosion, loss of biodiversity and various others). Private ownership of land and further investments in land improvements (i.e. increased economic returns per unit of land). Terrestrial and freshwater biodiversity: UN SDG indicator on the proportion of important sites for terrestrial and freshwater biodiversity that are covered by protected areas. UN SDG indicator on the proportion of fish stocks within biologically sustainable levels. Proportion of terrestrial and marine areas protected, number of threatened species. Climatology indexes including precipitation, humidity, temperature, weather extremes, GHG emissions and concentrations, etc. UN MDG indicator on total CO2 emissions and per capita emissions. Biofuels: Use of biofuels. Renewable energy: UN SDG indicator on the renewable energy share in the total final energy consumption. EU will evaluate the GSP (including Standard GSP, GSP+ and EBA) facilities enjoyed by LDCs. Bangladesh should give due attention to environment in order to maintain the duty free and quota free export facilities i. e. EBA to EU market. It may keep close liaison with EU secretariat and with the study team for through study on environment, social and economic impact of EBA in Bangladesh. The civil society and NGOs can play a crucial role in assessing the status of environment and climate situation. The writer is a legal economist