Author: Rafiqul Islam

Habitat loss, climate change threaten Bangladesh’s native freshwater fishes

- Rafiqul Islam -

Khalilur Rahman, 65, has been fishing in a tributary of the old Brahmaputra River in Kishoreganj for 50 years. Nowadays, he often returns home empty-handed. “The river has dried up. Without enough flow of water, many species of fish have disappeared,” he said. Khalilur said when he was young, the Brahmaputra had

Women advocates for harvesting rainwater in salinity-hit coastal Bangladesh

- Rafiqul Islam -

Like many other women in Bangladesh’s salinity-prone coastal region, Lalita Roy had to travel a long distance every day to collect drinking water as there was no fresh water source nearby her locality. “In the past, there was a scarcity of drinking water. I had to travel one to two kilometers

Indigenous forest dwellers fear losing ancestral land

- Rafiqul Islam -

When the Bangladesh Forest Department felled Basanti Rema’s banana orchard, Rema, a Garo indigenous forest-dweller of Madhupur Forest, felt she was living a nightmare. Rema, from Pegmari village in Madhupur, Tangail district, had cultivated the banana plants on half an acre in the Madhupur Forest. But the Forest Department claimed that