Bangladesh calls for legal recognition of people's right to water, land, food at UNCCD COP16

Bangladesh has called on the global community to legally recognise people's right to water, land, food, and the environment at UNCCD COP16.

Syeda Rizwana Hasan, Advisor to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change of Bangladesh, made the call while speaking at the Formal Statements session of the ongoing UNCCD COP16, held Tuesday, emphasising the urgent need for global action to combat desertification and achieve environmental justice.

She also highlighted the importance of regulating international trade and the transboundary movement of agrochemicals through due diligence in production processes.

The Advisor said that public support for financing, technology transfer, and capacity building is vital, but such support should not extend to water-intensive industries or unsustainable agricultural practices.

She said that as a lower riparian nation, Bangladesh wants regional cooperation for river basin management and hopes UNCCD COP16 will guide global and national political visions towards achieving a land degradation-neutral world.

Highlighting Bangladesh's challenges, Ms Hasan noted that the country must feed 170 million people with just 14.8 million hectares of land, one of the world’s lowest per capita land availability.

She warned that rising sea levels (SLR) could result in the loss of one-third of the country’s land mass by 2050, exacerbating food insecurity. Excessive use of groundwater and agrochemicals for high-yield rice production has also caused severe land contamination.

Ms Hasan shed light on Bangladesh’s vulnerability as an active delta.

Annual river erosion displaces over 1 million people, while the country loses 2.6 per cent of its forests annually—double the global average.

Coastal salinity has surpassed critical levels over the past three decades, and reduced water flows in 57 transboundary rivers due to upstream diversions have aggravated waterlogging and river flow issues, intensifying the nation’s challenges.

The Adviser urged the global community to act collectively for environmental and climate justice, addressing the huge finance gap in adaptation. “Recognising the limits to adaptation, ambitious mitigation action is imperative to save the planet and limit temperature rise to 1.5°C,” she stated.

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