COASTLINE CONSERVANCY in BANGLADESH - The clean picture

COASTLINE CONSERVANCY - The clean picture
Faizul Khan Tanim visits Cox’s Bazar seashore on account of the International Coastal Cleanup Day on September 14 and takes a look at the bigger picture of such a venture
photo by David Barikdar

Imagine, the world’s largest stretch of unbroken beach is littered with cigarette butts, discarded wrappers and foils, and trash. The distinct stench reaches your nostrils as you walk the beautiful coastline. Fortunately, it is no longer the case. Thanks to people practicing ‘bay area conservancy’ in Bangladesh, the Cox’s Bazar sea shore is being successfully kept clean. Inspired by a campaign in the United States, it was started by an international organisation called Ocean Conservancy in 1986. This organisation promotes and encourages healthy and diverse ocean ecosystems and opposes practices that threaten ocean and human life. According to the international media, the ‘International Coastal Cleanup Day’ is one of the largest and most successful volunteer events throughout the globe. Each year, thousands of volunteers from across the world participate to clean tons of waste from coastlines, rivers and lakes in a single day on September 15. This year, it was the 22nd annual International Coastal Cleanup Day and was celebrated in Bangladesh on September 14. A number of organisations, universities and school students and independent volunteers took part in this year’s cleanup day sponsored by Banglalink. Every year, volunteers in addition to cleaning up waterways and beaches, collects important data on the types, quantity and location of marine debris for research and other purposes, says the organisers of the event. The Ocean Conservancy website says in 1986, a staff member of the organisation was shocked by the amount of trash she found littered across the shores of South Padre Island, Texas. She took action by organising a beach cleanup. In three hours, 2,800 Texans picked up 124 tons of trash from 122 miles of coastline. With that, Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup was born. In 1989, the cleanup went international, with the participation of residents of Canada and Mexico. To date, over six million volunteers have removed over 100 million pounds of marine litter from a grand total of 170,000 miles of beaches and inland waterways. In Bangladesh, this coastline cleanup was heard to have been initiated by an NGO called Prottoy in 2004, but no trace was found afterwards. However, the first ever official coastal cleanup day was inaugurated in a very small scale in 2005 at Cox’s Bazar with only four volunteers and since then it has became a regular affair. Muntasir Mamun Imran, the country coordinator for Ocean Conservancy, was one of the four volunteers. Apart from that, with aim of corporate and social responsibility, Banglalink is sponsoring an everyday coastal conservancy project in Cox’s Bazar from last year, carried out by Green World Communication Ltd. This is an every day process of cleaning of wastes from the sea beach, which will not decompose, also known as non-biodegradable waste: items like cigarette butts, wrappers, bottles, cans, rubber products and more. A group of 17 to 18 homeless children from ages 14 to 19 works in two shifts a day – 6 am till 11 am and 3 pm till 6 pm. The children work enthusiastically and encourage other children of their age to join as well. Nasiruddin, a local kid from the cleanup group says, ‘each of us is paid Tk1200 per month with food, lodging and evening school as benefits, and we are quite happy’. Hedaitul Islam Helal, co-coordinator and initiator of this daily project from Green World Communication says, ‘during the peak season of tourism, an additional 20 workers are hired in the group, who are paid Tk. 150 per day and lunch is provided. ‘There is no specific count on the amount of tourists, but keeping track of the vehicles coming in and hotel room occupancy, it can be said that approximately 80,000 to 1,20,000 visitors visits Cox’s Bazar during the peak season (October till March) and 1,5000 to 25,000 during off-peak. And during the peak season, one five-ton capacity truck full of waste is recovered each day while the same amount is accumulated in a week during the off season. All the accumulated waste is then deposited on a particular spot and burnt at night time’, Helal added. Asked about the sustainability of the project if Banglalink stops funding, Helal, who believes in the phrase he coined himself – only a clean society can give clean people - thinks the project would not stop completely. ‘We will try to manage new sponsors. Since we are people from the media, we also thought of hosting billboards and other conceptual advertisements in the beach area to continue the project and help gain funds. We are also planning to set up a restaurant with the elder members of the cleanup team so that revenue can be generated from there to maintain their salary’. Talking about the next step of the project, Helal says: We are also preparing to set up five high watch towers as negotiations are still on with the district administration office regarding the permission. From September 2006 till September 2007, almost 18 people died and only two dead bodies could be recovered. The watch towers, inclusion of speedy water scooters, hi-end mike system and divers comprised of ex-Navy officers would surely bring this death toll down. Muntasir Mamun Imran has been an active volunteer for the coastal cleanup project held once every year, from 2005 onwards. He said, ‘we started with only four volunteers in 2005 and I was very inspired as we got an almost stunning 100 volunteers in 2006. And I do not think this cleanup project will ever stop as the work is totally voluntary and the numbers of volunteers is increasing every year’. He added that on the occasion of the International Coastal Cleanup Day, a total of ten bags, each containing 30 kilograms of non-biodegradable marine debris or waste was accumulated on September 14. He said that a group of volunteers actually started a cleanup project in 1990 but there is no substantial information about them and after that, 15 years passed, and the next campaign was done in 2005. ‘This campaign is more like an awareness program and we want to make sure that the tourists bringing in products, should not dump or litter those product containers here before leaving. We want to make this project big by extending it throughout the coastline and reach up to St. Martins and any other water body. We also want to present the government with collected information and important data regarding the amount of waste, for further study’, said Muntasir. It was seen that although the bigger waste particles were cleaned and removed, many small wastages still remained on the beach, littered across the coastal area. While asked about those smaller waste items like cigarette butts and nutshells or chewing gum wrappers, both Muntasir Mamun and Hedaitul Helal said they were only wiping those wastes which do not decompose. Organic wastes like nutshells do not pose threat to the habitat. It is true that the smaller particles do make the beach look dirty but they also need heavy machine suckers or powerful vacuum cleaners to suck in small wastes, and those are very expensive. Almost all the members associated with cleanup echoed the same notion that their motivation to do such voluntary work came mainly from a sense of social responsibility and working for beautification projects across the country. At dusk, the sand of the shoreline glows as if the sun is involved in an affair with the sand dunes. Ants march, crabs crawl, and birds chirp on the backdrop of the sea roar, sea liners and big boats occupy the horizon, as if they all had been choreographed for a major ocean picture. The visitors hope that this cleanup will continue forever and so will the motion picture.

*This article was first published in Daily New Age, EXTRA - http://www.newagebd.com/2007/sep/21/sep21/xtra_also4.html