UNESCO will submit their assessment report on Sundarbans and Rampal
Power Plant after two months. But the report won’t be handed over to
Bangladesh directly. Rather, what UNESCO will give us instead, is some
advices and Bangladesh needs to carry those advices into effect.
In fact, the existence of Sundarbans in UNESCO’s world heritage list
will be reconsidered on the basis of this specialist team’s report.
On March 22, a three-member UNESCO delegation arrived in Bangladesh
and left the country on 28th of March. World Heritage Centre of UNESCO
sent this 3 manned team of high-profile specialist with a name of
‘Re-active Monitoring Mission’. This team includes Fanny Adolphinem M
Douver, Naomi Clare, Mizuki Murai. On the first day of their trip,
they visited the project site of Rampal’s Power Plant and talked with
the local people as well as officials of this project.
Additional Secretary of the Ministry of Forest and Environment Mr.
Abdul Hannan said, the UNESCO team will make a report after visiting
the Sundarbans. Instead of giving the report to Bngladesh, UNESCO will
give some recommendations and advices to save the Sundarbans, he
added.
According to the Sources from Bangladesh India friendship Company,
UNESCO officials demanded explanation on transportation procedure of
coal, the procurement procedure on sink of any voyage or any sort of
accident while transporting, type of the chimney, distance from the
power plant to Sundarbans and many other related topic. The UNESCO
delegates had a discussion with the villagers of Rampal. The villagers
said that they want the Sundarbans to remain as unharmed or untouched
while they also expressed their urge for installing a power plant for
the betterment and development of their locality at the same time.
In last two days the delegation had meetings with eight ministries
including the ministry of Forest and Environment. The delegates wanted
to know if the related authority had the organizational and technical
capability to assess the environmental effect of Rampal’s Power Plant
while it would be in operation. The govt. has mega plan with Khulna
and Sundrbans region, such as expansion of Mongla Port, building Payra
Port, river dredging and other projects like these. The team asked if
the govt. or authority had the proper assessment report on how much
these projects could effect Sundarbans.
On the other hand, Environmentalist groups are opposing to install the
Rampal’s Power Plant. As per the schedule the Reactive monitoring team
about to had meetings with National Committee for Saving the
Sundarbans, National Committee to protect oil, gas and mineral
resources, power and port (Khulna wing), Environmental Lawyers
Association (BELA) and local environmentalist groups. But somehow,
these meetings didn’t take place. Leaders from these organizations
said that, the report will not be acceptable as the specialist team
had not any discussions with the environmentalist groups. Now the
report has a possibility to be one-sided and as a result we will
strengthen our movement, the environmentalist leaders said.
UNESCO gives recommendations and advices to the involved country’s
govt. to protect their heritage. If the govt. fails to execute,
implement those advices and recommendation correctly, the site will be
removed from the world’s heritage list.