Environmental Issues and Natural Resources Management in Bangladesh: Policy Options

Abstract

Environmental pollution by the poor people of slum settlements in urban areas is an important development challenge in Bangladesh. Rapid expansion of mega-cities by the uncontrolled growth rate of urbanization creates adverse impact on urban environment. Urbanization is the result of rural urban migration. Migrated people are mostly poor or extreme poor who put a significant pressure on the urban infrastructure and urban environment and ecological system. Poor people lead a substandard life in the slum and squatter settlements with inadequate essential services like land, housing, health, education, water, sanitation, sewerage, drainage, gas, electricity and so forth. Many slum settlements were established beside or over the natural water bodies such as rivers, canals, lakes, drains and standing water. These open water sources are very often badly polluted by the industrial and residential waste, as majority of the slums does not have proper waste management and sanitation system (Shiree Working Paper 11, 2013). This thesis argues that the problem of environment pollution in general and water pollution in particular in slums is caused by the absence of proper government policies on housing and the negligence of government authorities to the housing issues of the poor people of urban slums. However, decades of mismanagement is responsible for the long term damage in the natural water bodies. Moreover, there is lack of coordination between government and private sector developer.

This research attempts to explore how the pro-poor people of the urban slum pollutes the natural water body and how environmental and housing issues are addressed in relevant policies of government and the role of different government authorities in implementing such policies. The research then applies the concepts drawn from review of secondary literature, empirical study at the field level and the context of policy formulation and implementation of the government of Bangladesh.

The research shows that the urban poor housing and environmental pollution are interlinked. Findings from empirical research also shows that living conditions and livelihood of the poor people of the urban slums cause a serious negative impact on the surrounding environment especially on the open water resources. The study also revealed that, though the poor people of

urban slum receive some basic social services like housing, health, education, water, sanitation, gas, electricity, but the services are mostly inadequate in nature and when provided require an extremely high cost for the poor. However, these poor people do not know their actions are highly responsible for depletion of adjacent natural water resources. Its due to lack of their knowledge and awareness about environmental pollution.

For environmental preservation the study proposed several solutions including the preservation of the natural water body in the study area by initiating legislative measures and innovative implementation of policies and cooperative effort of the local urban authorities.