Saturday, February 8, 2014

Trying to leave Khulna and head back to Dhaka

Just like Nepal, Bangladesh is also struggling through “growing pains”. Bangladesh being a new country and Nepal working with a new government system. The people of these countries struggle with many issues, and they work hard to get their voices heard. In both Nepal and Bangladesh, one of the most common methods used to force the government to listen is to call for an automobile strike.
Source: Dhaka Newspaper. Protestors destroy automobiles that defy the strike orders, Bangladesh
These strikes can occur and do occur with relative frequency. As example, the day before I arrived in Bangladesh a strike had just ended, and the day I left another began. As they did in Nepal, this halts all activity in these countries. And this in turn halts the ability to carry out conservation work. Simple meetings between environmental stakeholders can not take place because they cannot travel safely. Researchers not already at a field site, cannot travel to the field. These are just examples, but you can easily see what a problem this can be. After I left, Manish was basically trapped at his University, not able to get to the “Dolphin House” or to the field for any research work for weeks.

Following a strike, the roads become incredibly congested because everyone needs to travel who has not been able to during the strike. When I arrived for example, a 12km journey from the airport took us three hours.

I mention this impending strike to help those reading to understand that conservation work in these countries is affected by much more than simply a lack of resources.

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