Management of Climate-Stressed Wetlands to Create Climate Resilience of Bangladeshi Wetland Communities

Abstract

In Bangladesh, wetland areas are ecologically and socio-economically important. Half of the total land area of the country is occupied by wetlands. The protection of wetland ecosystems is of special concern in Bangladesh as they are richly biodiverse, support various types of fisheries, and give shelter to both domestic and migratory birds. Adverse effects such as drought, early rain, and reduced rainfalls have already become a problem due to climate change. Like other wetlands in Bangladesh, the once ecologically rich Hakaluki haor, situated in the northeastern part of the country and the biggest freshwater wetland area of the country, is now in a critical condition. Therefore, local communities, especially the fishers who were once dependent on this haor, are now threatened by the prospect of losing their livelihoods. To address this urgent issue, the government of Bangladesh and various international organisations have invested in various projects to facilitate community-based climate change adaptation and resilience. The community-based adaptation (CBA) approach is popular because it helps to build the resilience of the vulnerable residents of climate-stressed areas through activities that based on local knowledge and experience. The Community-Based Adaptation in Ecologically Critical Areas through Biodiversity Conservation and Social Protection (CBA-ECA) Project, which was implemented from 2010-2015 to manage the Hakaluki haor, was the case study of this thesis. The overarching aim of this dissertation was to explore what factors contributed to whether this project was successful or not to manage climate-stressed wetlands and build climate resilience. The study found that the overall impact of the project was positive in the short term, while the project was being implemented, but showed long-term promise for only some of the interventions. Local people can now explain the impact of climate change in their community. They can face natural disasters more confidently and in a more united way than they were able to before the project. One of the most significant impacts of the project was on gender equity with women reporting they feel more capable than they did before joining the project. These interventions also helped to increase the financial capacity, as well as the resilience of the local household members and the overall community. On the other hand, the study found that the project faced several challenges in its attempt to fulfil the principles of CBA. The foremost challenge was to ensure democracy in the design and implementation of the CBA-ECA project and results demonstrated that this participation was ‘tokenistic’ or ‘for show’: community people were ‘heard’ but their opinions were not followed in the decision-making process. Another major challenge arose from the interference of ‘community elites’ who exploited the natural resources for profit and interfered with the decision-making process to benefit themselves, to the detriment of the poor and marginalised non-elites. Further, while the fish diversity and the plant diversity initially increased due to the participatory wetland management activities, the benefits associated with this, both for the ecosystem and the people whose livelihoods depended upon it, have diminished over time. This dissertation contributes to the literature by empirically identifying the challenges and constraints this CBA approach faced in practice in the context of managing climate-stressed wetlands in a developing country. Recommendations include that CBA projects need to be redesigned, and that decision-making should be democratically devolved to CBOs whose members are representative of the community and empowered to participate actively. In addition, the capacity and livelihood of local people should be built through more appropriate training and cash investment, with trainers from the same region and social class of the trainees preferred and realistic loans and grants offered. Members of the CBOs should be legally, socially and, if necessary, physically protected from elite capture, and NGOs should serve as outside expert advisors supporting community mobilisation and collaborative effort.