Lawmakers take dramatic step to shield high-profile landmark — but experts warn the threat isn't over
Lawmakers in Bangladesh recently approved a plan to prohibit new industrial ventures within 10 kilometers of the Sundarbans, a critical habitat for several important endangered species. The region is designated as an ecologically critical area and recognized internationally as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
The measure enhances existing environmental protections agreed upon in 2021. According to reporting by The Business Standard, existing industries within the ECA will be overseen by a "neutral team of experts" to assess their environmental impact. The move will provide a welcome boost to conservation efforts in the area.
The Sundarbans is the largest mangrove forest area in the world, at more than 10,000 square kilometers (6,213 miles), but it has been shrinking by roughly 16 square kilometers (10 miles) every year since 1991, per Earth.org.
It's difficult to overstate how important mangrove forests are.
They are essentially forest wetlands found in tropical and subtropical climates. Among other features, mangrove forests protect coastlines, filter water, sequester vast amounts of carbon, and provide a habitat for many species.
The Sundarbans is home to 260 species of birds and the critically endangered Bengal tiger, Indian python, and estuarine crocodile.
About 95% of the Bengal tiger's historic habitat has been lost, and the Sundarbans is one of the few remaining sites where the tigers can roam freely. As the World Wildlife Fund notes, one of the world's largest and most uniquely adapted tiger populations is found in the area.
Like other nations in the Indian subcontinent, Bangladesh heavily relies on fossil fuels to meet its energy needs.
Solar energy accounts for just 1.3% of its energy production, far below the global average of 15%, per Ember. Accordingly, Bangladesh had the second-worst air quality in the world in the 2024 AQI rankings.
While there is clearly much to be done, the government's move to enhance environmental protections in such an important area is a step in the right direction.
Do you think America does a good job of protecting its natural beauty?
Definitely
Only in some areas
No way
I'm not sure
Click your choice to see results and speak your mind.
Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Yahoo
Haris stars as Pakistan sweep Bangladesh T20 series
Mohammad Haris has smashed Pakistan's second-fastest T20 century to complete a 3-0 sweep for his team against Bangladesh. The wicketkeeper-batter raised his first T20 hundred off 45 balls and remained unbeaten on 107 as a new-look Pakistan cruised to 3-197 for a seven-wicket win in the third Twenty20 with 16 balls to spare. Earlier on Sunday, Bangladesh made 6-196, their highest total in a T20 against Pakistan, after the hosts' captain Salman Ali Agha won his third successive toss of the series but decided to chase for the first time. Haris continued to follow Pakistan's new aggressive batting approach in coach Mike Hesson's first series as white-ball head coach. Haris hit seven sixes and eight boundaries and also became the first non-opening Pakistan batter to score a T20 century. SIX and a FOUR! Mohammad Haris brings up his 5️⃣0️⃣ in style! 💥👏#PAKvBAN | #ClashOfGreen — Pakistan Cricket (@TheRealPCB) June 1, 2025 Pakistan had dropped seasoned pros Babar Azam, wicketkeeper Mohammad Rizwan and Shaheen Shah Afridi for the series to test their fringe T20 players as a build-up for next year's T20 World Cup. Opener Saim Ayub, who struggled in Pakistan's first two wins with scores of 0 and 4, returned to form with 45 off 29 balls and put on 92 runs with Haris after Sahibzada Farhan (one) fell in the first over. Power-hitter Hasan Nawaz, who scored Pakistan's quickest-ever century in a T20 against New Zealand in March off 44 balls, scored 20 of his 26 runs in fours and sixes before he gave spinner Mehidy Hasan Miraz (2-26) his second wicket. Bangladesh couldn't capitalize on a 110-run opening stand between Parvez Hossain Emon (66) and Tanzid Hasan (42). Legspinner Shadab Khan dismissed Emon in the 12th over and squeezed Bangladesh in the middle overs before fast bowler Abbas Afridi (2-26) choked the batting further in the death overs. Afridi gave away only eight runs in his last two overs and picked up the wickets of Shamim Hossain (eight) and Towhid Hridoy (25) as Bangladesh could score only 46 runs in the last five overs and lost four wickets. Pakistan won the first match by 37 runs and the second by 57 after Bangladesh failed to chase down identical targets of 202 runs in both games.
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Yahoo
Haris century earns 3-0 sweep for new-look Pakistan against Bangladesh
Bangladesh's Tanzid Hasan Tamim plays a shot during the third Twenty20 cricket match between Pakistan and Bangladesh, in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunday, June 1, 2025. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary) Pakistan's Mohammad Haris plays a shot during the third Twenty20 cricket match between Pakistan and Bangladesh, in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunday, June 1, 2025. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary) Pakistan's Mohammad Haris celebrates after scoring century during the third Twenty20 cricket match between Pakistan and Bangladesh, in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunday, June 1, 2025. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary) Pakistan's Mohammad Haris celebrates after scoring century during the third Twenty20 cricket match between Pakistan and Bangladesh, in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunday, June 1, 2025. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary) Bangladesh's Tanzid Hasan Tamim plays a shot during the third Twenty20 cricket match between Pakistan and Bangladesh, in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunday, June 1, 2025. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary) Pakistan's Mohammad Haris plays a shot during the third Twenty20 cricket match between Pakistan and Bangladesh, in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunday, June 1, 2025. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary) Pakistan's Mohammad Haris celebrates after scoring century during the third Twenty20 cricket match between Pakistan and Bangladesh, in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunday, June 1, 2025. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary) LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — Mohammad Haris smashed Pakistan's second fastest century in a T20 game to complete a 3-0 sweep for his team against Bangladesh on Sunday. The wicketkeeper-batter raised his first T20 hundred off 45 balls and remained unbeaten on 107 as a new-look Pakistan cruised to 197-3 for a seven-wicket win in the third Twenty20 with 16 balls to spare. Advertisement Bangladesh had earlier made 196-6, its highest total in a T20 against Pakistan, after Pakistan captain Salman Ali Agha won his third successive toss of the series but decided to chase for the first time. Haris continued to follow Pakistan's new aggressive batting approach in coach Mike Hesson's first series as white-ball head coach. Haris hit seven sixes and eight boundaries and also became the first non-opening Pakistan batter to score a T20 century. Pakistan had dropped seasoned pros Babar Azam, wicketkeeper Mohammad Rizwan and Shaheen Shah Afridi for the series to test its fringe T20 players as a build-up for next year's T20 World Cup. Opener Saim Ayub, who struggled in Pakistan's first two wins with scores of 0 and 4, returned to form with 45 off 29 balls and put on 92 runs with Haris after Sahibzada Farhan fell for 1 in the first over. Advertisement Power-hitter Hasan Nawaz, who scored Pakistan's quickest-ever century in a T20 against New Zealand in March off 44 balls, scored 20 of his 26 runs in fours and sixes before he gave spinner Mehidy Hasan Miraz (2-26) his second wicket. Bangladesh couldn't capitalize on a 110-run opening stand between Parvez Hossain Emon (66) and Tanzid Hasan (42). Leg-spinner Shadab Khan dismissed Emon in the 12th over and squeezed Bangladesh in the middle overs before fast bowler Abbas Afridi (2-26) choked the batting further in the death overs. Afridi gave away only eight runs in his last two overs and picked up the wickets of Shamim Hossain (8) and Towhid Hridoy (25) as Bangladesh could score only 46 runs in the last five overs and lost four wickets. Pakistan won the first match by 37 runs and the second by 57 runs after Bangladesh failed to chase down identical targets of 202 runs in both games. ___ AP cricket:
Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Yahoo
At 90, Tom Barnwell has left a lasting legacy on Hilton Head Island
Thomas C. Barnwell Jr. was born on an incoming tide on Hilton Head Island 90 years ago, and he's been riding a flood of change ever since. When Barnwell was inducted into the Hilton Head Island Hall of Fame in 2013, he was called 'an outspoken community leader, bringing an energetic voice — as well as affordable health care, public water systems and economic and educational opportunities — to the powerless.' Add affordable housing to the list. Between 1978 and 2000, he and his family have developed 100 units in five different projects on Hilton Head. And add environmental protection, from the days the Hilton Head Fishing Cooperative he and others founded joined the fight against a petrochemical plant coming to Bluffton. But as he and I talked ahead of his birthday on Monday, June 2, the dominant theme turned out to be family. Barnwell lives on Katie Miller Drive, named for his grandmother, his home in a rural setting amid the island's hubbub. We looked at a snapshot showing generations five through eight of his family on the island. It began when Caesar and Mariah Jones paddled over from Bluffton — seeking freedom during the Civil War, and presumably setting up home in the freedmen village of Mitchelville. Barnwell — a born entrepreneur who sold candy to his elementary school classmates and could always get the teacher off topic — has hair of gray and white now. He was wearing a starched oxford shirt, blue jeans and suspenders when he mentioned his ongoing second battle with prostate cancer. He and Susan Carter Barnwell will celebrate 52 years of marriage in September. Two of his children — Thomas 'Curtis' Barnwell III and Paulette Barnwell Ervin – live on the island. A third, Jason S. Barnwell, who has an engineering degree from MIT and a law degree from the University of Southern California — works for Microsoft in Seattle. He wants them to remember where they came from. Barnwell was born in the Squire Pope area of an island with no bridge, electricity, paved roads, hospital or telephones. As a child, he saw trees, sand and more trees. But his grandfather, Benjamin Walter White, 'used to say to us, 'Hold onto your land because Hilton Head Island one day will be the Garden of Eden place of the South.' That has remained one of Barnwell's mantras. 'I was just a little boy when I heard that,' he said. 'I said, 'This old man has got to be crazy.' I said that to myself. I wouldn't dare say that to him. I would have been told to go out there and get a switch and he would have whipped me.' That grandfather was a farmer who purchased a lot of land. 'He'd put us in a wagon when it was time to grind the cane and show us where his property lines used to be,' Barnwell said. Barnwell said he is saddened to see how much land has left Gullah hands 'for many reasons.' He said families should treat land as a business. His family leases the sandy soil on which a large, blue-roofed timeshare project rises on Skull Creek today. The family still owns the place where Paulette recalls as a child getting chased up a tree by a big bull named Jupiter. Barnwell's parents were bright lights guiding both him and the Gullah community. Tom Sr. was a farmer, ferryman and doorman — educated at the Penn School on St. Helena Island, as was Tom Jr. Island Packet co-founder and columnist Jonathan Daniels wrote that Tom Sr. was a 'shrewdly humorous, impeccably polite man' who served both the Gullah and the newcomers as a 'quiet and perceptive counselor.' But Barnwell said it was his mother, Hannah White Barnwell, who set him onto perhaps his most important life's work. She was educated at The Mather School in Beaufort, and at a nursing school for Black people in Columbia, and she was a force for both health care and child care on her isolated island. Barnwell recalled: 'She, as an adult, called me and said, 'There's this doctor in Bluffton named Dr. Donald Gatch. He is a very good friend of (public health nurse) Ann Pitts. You need to meet him. You need to spend some time with him. You need to understand what he has discovered as a problem in our area. And you need to spend some time working with him on that problem.' That was in 1968. The problem was children infested with intestinal parasites, and the associated poverty. Barnwell holds up the transcript of testimony about Lowcountry conditions he and others made before the U.S. Senate Select Subcommittee on Nutrition and Human Needs in February 1969. It became a national story. Gatch was known as 'The Hunger Doctor.' Among the outcroppings of that public reckoning was the creation of the Beaufort-Jasper-Hampton Comprehensive Health Services Inc., offering medical care to the indigent and organizing public water systems in rural areas. Barnwell was its director for a decade, and its administrative building in Okatie is named for him. Ninety years of rapid advances in the Lowcountry may have left one important thing behind. That is family. Commuting a couple of hours both to and from work on Hilton Head each day, 'disrupts the opportunity for families being able to blend and grow together as a unit,' Barnwell said. 'The jobs are important. They keep people financially afloat. But the family is more and more deteriorating.' Technology also plays a part, with every child holding a cellphone. 'Those things don't capture the kind of things we used to get from the older people, sitting next to the fireplace.' And that leaves a society not knowing — or appreciating — the dignity, sacrifice and work that brought today's opportunities. 'You'll find it in these books,' Barnwell said, tapping his stacks of documents. 'I hope maybe one of these days my grandchildren or great-grandchildren or great-great-grandchildren will look at these books and see that I, along with a lot of other people, have been helpful.' David Lauderdale may be reached at lauderdalecolumn@ .
