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Low-cost ambulances for Rohingya patients: UNDP
July 29
As part of United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) commitment to “leave no one behind”, the innovation lab of its Access to Information (a2i) Programme officially handed over two low-cost ambulances to Research Training and Management International (RTMI) in Cox’s Bazar on Thursday. “These low-cost ambulances will not only help patients, particularly pregnant women, in the Rohingya camps avail services of nearby hospitals but also save lots of money,” said Refugee, Relief and Repatriation Commissioner Mohammad Abul Kalam Azad.
The ambulances were purchased by United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to support their efforts at the camps, said a press release. RTMI is their implementing partner. UNFPA Chief of Health Dr Sathya Doraiswamy, a2i Representative Director (Joint Secretary) Md Abdus Sabur Mondal and RTMI Executive Director Syed Jaglul Pasha were present at the ceremony held at the Cox’s Bazar Circuit House. “We have a district innovation team and we always promote any innovation that helps the people, particularly the marginalised community, to lead a better life. These ambulances will certainly add great value in Cox’s Bazar, specially in the Rohingya community,” said Md Kamal Hossain, deputy commissioner of Cox’s Bazar, who chaired the ceremony. An innovator hailing from Jashore, Mizanur
Rahman, developed the ambulance initially. After winning the ninth round of a2i’s Innovation Fund, the project was incubated under the supervision of the Innovation Lab to reach its current state of being a financially viable means of patient transport. The low-cost ambulances have a base price of Tk 3.5 lakh and final price would depend on its retrofit of medical equipment. It can carry one patient and two attendants and is able to ply 25km for every litre of oil. Lowered operation cost and easily available spares mean that these ambulances can be used to transport people from marginal areas to healthcare centres or places where the patients can be transferred to more technologically advanced ambulances for longer travel
Also Published in BanglaNews24, UNB, Daily Asian Age
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More than a third of the world’s population is expected to live in cities by 2050
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Climate Change Victims (FROM PAGE 1, COLUMN 1)
According to a study, when Cyclone Aila hit the area in 2009, “Khulna District was worst damaged by cyclone Aila”, with more than a half a million people affected. “We have been living in the one of most disaster-prone regions as cyclones and storm surges hit us every year. But, in the past, we had caught fish in the rivers and canals of Sundarbans putting our life and aquatic animals like dolphin at risk,” Boyati, who is now chief of Dhangmari Dolphin Conservation Team, tells IPS.
HOME TO RARE SPECIES OF DOLPHINS THAT DON’T LIVE TOGETHER ANYWHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD The Sundarbans is a home to the Asia’s last two remaining freshwater dolphin species – the endangered Ganges River Dolphin and Irrawaddy Dolphin. It’s also the only place in
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the world where the two dolphins share the same habitat. According to a 2009 estimate of the United States-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), there were 225 Ganges dolphins and 451 Irrawaddy Dolphins in the Bangladesh portion of the Sundarbans. But these are now endangered mammals due to both natural and manmade causes. The Daily Star reported that a 2010 joint survey by WCS and Bangladesh Cetacean Diversity Project (BCDP) found some “225 Gangetic river dolphins, 6,000 Irrawady dolphins, over 1,000 Bottlenose dolphins and a significant number of Indo-Pacific hump-backed dolphins, pan-tropical spotted dolphins and spinner dolphins in the rivers and canals of the Sundarbans”. In 2012, the Bangladesh government declared the Dhangmari, Chandpai and Dudhmukhi areas of Pasur and Andharmanik rivers as dolphin sanctuaries covering 32 linear kilometres, aiming to protect the aquatic mam-
mal from extinction.
FISHER COMMUNITIES EDUCATE ABOUT HARMS OF FISHING IN PROTECTED AREAS Fisherfolk like Boyati have never intentionally harmed dolphins here. But as happens across the world, here too dolphins get tangled in fishing gear and nets. To conserve the diversity of aquatic animals in the Sundarbans, the Bangladesh Forest Department has formed six dolphin conservation teams involving the community people, who are the most vulnerable to climate change as many are struggling with their livelihoods against the rising sea. Now a 12-member conservation team is educating local fishermen not to catch fish in the dolphin hotspot areas and sanctuaries identified by Bangladesh Forest Department, Boyati explains. “We are not only mobilising the community people, but also help the forest officials identify the problems they have been facing in dolphin conservation,” he says. Modinul Ahsan, Divisional Forest Officer and National Project Director, tells IPS there are currently 6 dolphin conservation teams that are operational “in the Sundarbans and the teams are working voluntarily to create awareness among the communities so that they come forward to protect the freshwater dolphins”. He explains that when dolphins are caught in the nets of fishermen in the Sundarbans’ rivers, the conservation teams immediately inform forest officials, who then rescue and release the dolphins. The conservation teams were formed under the Expanding the Protected Area System to Incorporate Aquatic Systems Project with financial support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF). The Forest Department in collaboration with International Union for Conservation of Nature or IUCN Bangladesh is implementing the project, which is expected to be completed at the end of this year, Ahsan explains. The Forest Department has also identified several dolphin hotspots in Sela-Supati rivers, Sibsa River, the estuarine area around Putney Island, Pasur River, Baleshawr Estuary, and the Pankhali confluence, covering 571 square
kilometres. “After introduction of the conservation teams, fishing declined by 70 percent in the dolphin sanctuaries and that is why the status of dolphin is good there,” IUCN Programme Coordinator ABM Sarwar Alam tells IPS. Since the implementation of the project the number of freshwater dolphins in the areas have increased. “Dolphin conservation means fisheries conservation…the presence of dolphins in any river indicates that its ecosystem is good,” project manager Rezaul Karim Chowdhury tells IPS. However, risks remain.
CARGO SHIPS AND NETS STILL KILL A large number of cargo ships travel through the Goshiakhali channel near Dhanmari sanctuary every day, posing a threat to the endangered dolphins that exist there. Around 130 dolphins were killed in the riverine, coastal and marine waters of Bangladesh from January 2007 to April 2016 either from being trapped in fishing nets or through injury from ship propellers, unofficial data reveal. An official survey shows that 70 percent of dolphin deaths can be attributed to incidental killing by fishing nets, while 8 percent is attribute to poison fishing, 6 percent to the decline of fish and crustaceans, 6 percent to the decrease of freshwater flow and 5 percent to siltation — an increased concentration of sediments in the water. Chowdhury adds that a rapid decline in thae flow of Sundarbans rivers and indiscriminate industrialisation near the mangrove forest are also posing threat to the aquatic animals. “Dolphins could be protected by controlling vessel movement in the Sundarbans and checking fishing nets there,” Alam says. Until then Boyati and his team are working with other fisherfolk to educate them about the dangers of fishing in the protected areas. Mrinal Mondal, another dolphin conservation team member, says if any fisher person is catch fish in the dolphin sanctuary or hotspot areas, the team members ask them to relocate, explaining how numerous dolphins die when trapped in fishing nets. “Apart from conservation of aquatic animals, when any wildlife comes to their locality from the Sundarbans, they rescue it and release the animal to the forest,” Mondal tells IPS
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BE PART OF A MOVEMENT THAT ASKS YOU TO ENGAGE AND SHOW YOUR SUPPORT FOR URGENT CLIMATE ACTION!
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