Pashua Haor in Sunamganj
Migratory birds vanish gradually
The number of migratory birds visiting the Pashua haor in Sunamganj has drastically fallen from four lakh to four thousand a year over the last eight years as the haor is losing its ecological balance.
“The ecosystem here is greatly hampered by indiscriminate collection of plants and fishes from it,” President of Bangladesh Bird Club Enam UL Haque said yesterday.
He was addressing a roundtable discussion “Avian Biodiversity Conservation at Pashua and Tanguar Hoar” held at the National Press Club in the city.
Enam urged the government to step forward to preserve the haor urgently to restore its ecosystem.
Despite the poor habitat in Pashua, birds of 11 endangered and nearly endangered species and one new species have been found here, he added.
Enam, who also moderated the discussion, said in most countries if a single endangered species is found in a forest, that forest is preserved. Pasua haor is yet to receive any attention from the authorities despite so many endangered species living here, he said.
The veteran wild life and bird expert said the drastic fall in migratory birds’ arrival in Pasua was caused by several things, including indiscriminate felling of Hijol and Koros trees over 400 acres of the river bank and continuous collection of Nol Khagra, a wetland herb used as cattle feed.
The felling of trees creates a series of problems in the complex ecosystem of the haor area as fish species cannot complete their breeding cycles because of the submerged roots of Koros and Hijol trees and birds do not find insects they feed on which live on these trees. On the other hand migratory ducks largely feed on the wetland herb now used by locals as cattle feed.
Enam also mentioned the potential threat of spread of avian flu when local ducks are taken to haors to save on poultry feed. This increases the risk of cross breeding with migratory birds.
Ishtiaq Uddin Ahmed, country representative of International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Bangladesh said over half a crore residents around Tanguar Haor in Sunamganj now depend on the haor resources for a livelihood, which hampers its ecological balance.
He said over 56,000 people live in 88 villages on the banks of Tanguar Haor with 51 beels over a total area of 9,727 hectares. Since most of this land belongs to locals, authorities face problems in planting trees there.
Tanguar Haor was declared an Ecologically Critical Area (ECA) in 2000 and made a Ramsar site.
Other speakers at the discussion also made recommendations to preserve the haors in the country.
They demanded scientific management of hoar environments, co-ordinated action plans and monitoring, land management guide lines, introduction of eco-tourism and arrangement of alternative livelihoods for haor inhabitants.
Among others Prof Philip D Round of the Wetland Trust of UK, Paul M Thompson of Flood Action Research took part in the discussion while Mohammad Nasir Uddin, joint secretary of the Ministry of Environment and Forest spoke as the chief guest.
-With The Daily Star input
