BANGLADESH INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AND STRATEGIC STUDIES

ENVIRONMENTAL SECURITY IN THE CONTEXT OF BANGLADESH

Author: Mizan R, Khan

DOI Link: DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.56888/BIISSj2005v26n2

ABSTRACT

Bangladesh presents a test case of environmental insecurity, because of its geographic location and other physical and socio-economic parameters. The paper looked into three environmental security-related problems: .a) resource conflicts among the tribals and Bangali settlers in the Chittagong Hill Tracts as an intra-state security issue, b) India's river-linking project as a regional threat, and c) climate change as a threat emanating from global sources. The paper argued that successive government policies differed with the traditional systems of resource management and customary rights of tribals. This fuelled ethnic conflicts there. With no schooling and experience in private property culture and regime, the tribals started losing out in a kind of zero-sum game. To meet the inter-related challenges of regional water-sharing and global climate change, Bangladesh needs to change the focus of her foreign policy -towards a low politics-oriented environmental and hydro diplomacy. The latter now greatly subsumes the mission of her economic diplomacy. However, Bangladesh, particularly the Foreign and Commerce ministries, appears to be not sensitive enough to the call of the time.