A multiyear project in Bangladesh aims to help coastal communities become more resilient to climate disasters.
Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries on Earth, home to about 160 million people living in an area smaller than the state of Iowa. Its nearly 600 kilometers (372 miles) of coastline also make it highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
The region has seen soaring temperatures and a succession of natural disasters, including cyclones, which not only damage houses, trees, and belongings but also flood areas with saltwater that destroys livestock, pastures, and crops. As the land and ecosystem degrade, families are increasingly unable to produce enough food to feed themselves or to sell for income.
Oxfam is working with two partners, Breaking the Silence and the Community Development Centre, on a project called Blue Economy and Inclusive Development for Climate Justice (BID4CJ), which supports nearly 10,000 people living in these coastal communities, including the cities of Khulna and Chittagong. BID4CJ helps restore marine ecosystems, provides green jobs, and decreases people's vulnerability to climate change, with an emphasis on supporting women.
Since the project began in 2023, partners have organized women’s associations in every ward of these areas, said Meraz Uddin Talukdar, BID4CJ’s manager. “We are trying to raise awareness among women about their rights to enter and work in places of natural resources. Besides that, we are working to ensure the cooperation of the responsible government departments here.
“Natural disasters happen here frequently, and men do not stay here for long,” he continued. “When men leave for work, women suffer from insecurity. Through our work with the women, they have developed a self-awareness in them that they too are human. They know they have these rights. … They are organizing small meetings by themselves. They have included other people in their work and brought a change at the community level by creating awareness. They have taken the initiative to solve their problem together.”
Talukdar notes that men, too, have taken initiative and have started treating women as equal human beings and partners, realizing that work doesn’t need to be divided by gender.
Teaching the honey farmer new tricks
So far, the BID4CJ project has trained nearly 6,000 people in multiple areas, including how to plant trees and mangroves, dig freshwater ponds for fishing, and increase the impact of their existing businesses.
Koruna Rani Sarkar is a 53-year-old honey farmer who remembers gathering honey with her father in the Sundarbans, a massive mangrove forest that stretches across southern Bangladesh and India. Honey was more plentiful then, as years of erosion and tree-cutting had yet to take their toll. Honey supplies have only recently increased, as local governments have enforced laws that restrict logging, but so have the number of honey collectors.
Sarkar has farmed honey since 2003, but she learned new skills after attending the Community Development Centre’s three-day training.
“We discussed how to prevent the things which harm the environment and the benefits of not using these prohibited products for the environment,” she said. “I learned that we can store the honey through processing, as we collect honey throughout the year. If we store the honey by draining the water through the honey processing machine, then it can be kept for two years. We can launch it in the market at different places and then there will be no chance of bad smell and spoilage.”
Sarkar primarily farms Mellifera bees but can harvest their honey in the Sundarbans only during the month of March. The rest of the year she collects different kinds of honey from all over Bangladesh, from mustard, coriander, and black cumin plants, and from palm and litchi trees.
“I learned from [the training] that I was weak in some areas,” she said. “For example, how and where to store the honey. It cannot be kept in a plastic jar because there will be a bad smell. NEARLY 10,000 PEOPLE But I have noticed that if it can be stored in a glass jar, it can be kept for a long time and there will be no bad smell. It will not be spoiled if it can be kept through processing.”
Sarkar also learned how to cultivate vegetables organically and how to apply vermicompost [which uses worms to decompose waste], and she received training on the marketing and pricing of her products and how to sell them in a stall. Both her daughters now work for her, as well as one son-in-law.
“It is a profitable and honorable business. I am the only woman honey farmer in the whole of Bangladesh, and people recognize me by name. This is a matter of huge pride for me,” Sarkar said. “I have built a house here. … It is wholly made from the money I get from my business.”
Oxfam acknowledges the support of the Australian Government through the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP)