Arial Beel farmers deserve better

Arial Beel, the country's third largest wetland after the Sunderbans and Hakaluki Haor, presents a classic case of misguided policy infringement in natural environment. To kleptrocratic administration, natural resources so integral to maintain bio-diversity, have little value other than a means to serving their myopic interests. Strangely, though, the members of the vested interest group try to pass their exploitative schemes as development projects. Arial Beel with its vast area located in between two rivers, the mighty Padma and the Dhaleshshwari, is not only home to a diverse species of aquatic flora but also a breeding ground of a large number of sweet-water indigenous species of fish. Parts of the swamp even become fit for cultivation of Boro and vegetables with the water receding in the lean season.

It is no surprise that some of the fertile brains of the deposed regime with capacity for incalculable monstrosity targeted the wetland for using it as yet another grand development project. Their target was to build an airport as a major showpiece of development all because this could offer them the opportunity to loot a huge amount of money. Farmers and fishermen who have been the traditional beneficiaries with many of those owning agricultural plots there were not concerned about the intrigues that went into making a choice for the area for construction of an airport. Nor were they so much aware of the environmental disaster an airport would have wreaked on the area and the surrounding villages and human settlements but they simply did not want to lose the wetland. It is because their livelihoods and life largely depended on the resources of the wetland.

Thus the interests of farmers and fishermen of the area and that of the government clashed and in 2011, the repressive administration unleashed its brutality on the unarmed people who organized a massive protest rally in the area. The fascist character was in full display when several hundred villagers were arrested and cases were filed against half the population of the adjacent villages. Mercifully, the casualty was limited to just one death but it could be many more. The wetland was saved by the people who demonstrated tremendous courage and commitment.

Strangely, after almost nine months of incumbency of this interim government, the cases filed at that time are yet to be withdrawn. People who should be treated as heroes are still accused of false charges. The villagers of the area had to bring to the notice of the agriculture and home affairs adviser, who was on a visit there, of the cases filed in 2011 by the previous regime. It is not known if they moved for withdrawal of the cases after the July-August uprising. Now that the cases filed left and right over the past months are under scrutiny, the Arial Beel cases should be the prime candidates for immediate review and most likely withdrawal for understandable reasons. Let the protest movement that thwarted the attempt at anthropogenic infringement serve as a model for frustrating any government misadventure with potential for environmental disaster. It should also be a deterrent to all future development projects posing a serious threat to ecology and topography.