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by Shanika Sriyananda

'Green' bags in Bangladesh

The capital is dusty...and smelly. It is a sign of poverty, perhaps, as many beggars with little children in torn and dirty clothes, crowding around vehicles begging for money, in traffic jams.

This is the general impression of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, that comes into one's mind after a stroll, in the city.

But, the results of an unprecedented step forward taken by the Bangladesh government, three years ago to ban the once problematic 'god sent carriers' - the polythene bags- are emerging. Dhaka is now a city, which is totally free of polythene in whatever variety.

Mohammed Siddique, a middle aged pavement hawker, who sells fancy items and cotton shalwar material at the Banga Bazaar was happy to talk about the ban. The clogged drains turned his home into a pool on rainy days. Now, except for major floods, his house and hundreds of others are relatively safe.

"Jute bag is the best", he says in broken English. During my short stay in Dhaka recenlty I met Mohammed, several vendors as well as shoppers who proudly carry paper bags or cloth bags.

Dhaka is a city which was at one time filled with polythene bags. Nearly 10 million bags were strewn all over each day. Due to lack of interest and awareness around 10-15 per cent of such bags were dumped into dustbins but the balance ended up in drains, sewage canals and even open spaces.

A layer of polythene on the Buriganga River bed in Dhaka posed a serious challenge in dredging the river, which flows through the city of 10 million people. The river lost its navigability and its water turned poisonous.

The blockage of drains by polythene became a severe environmental and health hazard, which is prone to severe floods. According to reports, over 80 per cent of drains in Dhaka are blocked due to polythene waste.

"Now drinking water is clean and our children suffer less from diarrhoea", Mohammed says adding that sewer water gets mixed with drinking water during the floods due to blocked drains.

Dairy farmers too experienced a bad patch as several cattle too died due to consuming polythene bags mixed with garbage.

With the introduction of polythene shopping bags two decades ago, the jute bag, which was the traditional sack used in every household in Bangladesh gradually suffered a slow death. But the ban on polythene bags is now a blessing disguise for the jute industry. The dyeing industry is reawakened and today the lives of many depend on this industry.

With the ban, the government 'discovered' some other bio-degradable alternatives to replace the 'evil' polythene bags. Meanwhile, the Jute Research Institute found that jute, which grows abundantly in Bangladesh, requires less energy for processing than polythene. Artificial packaging took over the jute manufacturing, which was once the Bangladesh's major foreign exchange earner.

12-year-old Naslima has an afternoon job to earn extra money to support her mother for survival. She engages in paper bag-making after school. She can turn out 50 paper bags in two hours and there is a good demand.

The ban created hundreds of new jobs and now the Bangladeshi people are capable enough to put out bags from 'environmental friendly' material. They make bags from newspapers, cement covers, old books, used exercise books and even fabric.

Issuing of bags are different from pavement to shops. Pavement hawkers will give your stuff in newspaper bags but in shops and big shopping malls you will be given bags, especially made for them. But most of them are re-cycled paper.

This progress did not come about easily. It is the result of a tough political will of the Environment Minister Shahajahan Siraj and well organised islandwide public awareness campaigns.

The ban became a big blow to hundreds of small factories engaged in the manufacture of polythene bags and thousands, who depended on polythene lost their income. According to Mohammed Hafiz, a Bangadeshi environmental journalist, the people who were affected by the ban rallied against the ban.

And then the polythene industrialists tried to bribe the ministers to stop implementing the ban. But, this wise decision has given a boost to a dyeing industry, created thousands of more jobs, and those who worked in polythene industries were re-employed in jute industries.

Yesterday...people of Bangladesh showed the world that they can live without polythene bags, then... why not Sri Lankans, who now suffer the same fate, follow the same strategy tomorrow... ?

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An arduous journey !

by Rikaza Hassan

The sun had set, the stars had risen and the tide was high. We were at the beach at Kosgoda: a bunch of reporters, members of the Turtle Conservation Project Sri Lanka (TCPSL) and representatives of our host, the UNDP.

Two men from the hatchery had already arrived as promised with a container of baby turtles and flashlights; baby turtles are attracted towards the light. As they released the babies on to the soft sand and shone the light in the direction of the waves, the tiny turtles began to move towards the water in their characteristic slow crawl. A few who still managed to get lost were guided in the right direction.

The people from the hatchery were of course here to prove to us that they do indeed release the babies in their captivity, though very much later in the natural process.

The babies contain a yolk sac on their underside which they feed off on their two day non-stop journey to the deep ocean. It is believed that only 1 in 1000 hatchlings survive this journey. By holding the babies, captive however, the turtles have no energy source for their difficult crossing.

Hatchery owners buy off from those who collect turtle eggs and re-nest them in their own grounds. However being scientifically illiterate, they do not understand the repercussions: man-made nests are all of one particular temperature giving rise to hatchlings of a single sex (the sex of turtles depends upon the temperature and the natural division in temperature while the eggs laid is near impossible to be replicated), or if the eggs have spent too much time outside of their nests, the mucus membrane surrounding the shell dries out leaving it prone to infection.

Unwittingly however, they do play an unwarranted part in turtle conservation by eating into the market of the restauranters. The stars had retreated with the moon's bright illumination as we reached yet another region of the Kosgoda beach.

The project leader of TCPSL, Thushan Kapurusinghe, explained to us the reason for the strangely narrow stretch of beach; the tsunami had wiped away all the obstruction and now the sea eats into the beach on a daily basis. However, even the still evident debris of the tsunami aftermath could not dim our excitement as we watched from the shadows, a green turtle emerge from the sea to crawl across the beach. We were to be disappointed twice however with false crawls before we finally struck it lucky with yet another green.

The mother did not move far from the sea and the nest protectors assigned to the particular stretch decided that the eggs will need to be relocated to avoid it being washed out to sea. Green turtles usually nest in reeds in an attempt to have only filtered sunlight reach their eggs, however, the tidal waves have wiped out the existing ones.

As the creature began to dig into the sand with powerful strokes, sand flying into our faces, the digging of another nest had already begun. When she finally reached the right depth, she began the long process of laying nearly 200 eggs. It was now safe for us to get a much closer look as the eggs were measured (the results tabulated), collected onto a cloth and transported to safer grounds.

The second day was spent at the Rekawa beach. Rekawa is nesting ground for all five species of marine turtles found in Sri Lanka (there are only seven species in the world): olive ridley, green turtle, leatherback, loggerhead and hawksbill (the heaviest reptile in the world, weighing upto a ton). As we walked the clean soft stretch of sand at Rekawa, filled with shells in a variety of colours, we were presented with the opportunity of speaking to two former egg collectors who now work as nest protectors.

"I am much happier now. I am saving animals as well as earning myself an income. I no more have a guilty conscience about how I earn my bread," said Ebert Perera. His friend and colleague, T. Madison Silva agreed, adding that now they also have a social acceptance in the village as they are "not on par with the beach boys who also collect and sell eggs on the side."

These are examples of the reform that has been taking place due to the hard work by the members of the TCPSL. They have educated these former egg collectors to understand the importance of conservation as well as given them a means of living, but most important to them, a renowned social standing. They are also trained as professional on-site guides, giving new life to those forced to resort to illegal means.

Turtles appeared on land 200 million years ago, have an extremely low survival rate and an extremely long lifespan. They are good swimmers and divers and traverse the marine world extensively. However they always return to their place of birth to nest, only most of the time these beaches are highly polluted and full of predatory humans out to harm their eggs as well as the adults themselves who make easy prey on land, heavy with offspring.

Turtles play an important role in balancing the marine ecology, not to mention that it is heart-warming to watch them underwater. Hence why not give them a helping hand to get back together by not buying eggs, turtle shell ornaments or visiting hatcheries? They are after all innocent creatures who have done you no harm and expect only a little more consideration.

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Preventing extinction with the power of the moving image

by Aditha Dissanayake

In an attempt to increase awareness of the environment and development issues through audio visual and electronic media, an International Documentary Film Festival and an Award Ceremony for Sri Lankan Short Films was held by Sri Lanka Environmental Television Project (SLETP) on July 28, 29 at the Mahaweli Centre.

Focusing on such factors of the environment as biodiversity, the ocean and disaster management, the documentaries screened at the festival included films on turtles ('Animal Detectives: Turtles'), stone age apes, shrimp fever and biodiversity: A chance for salvation etc.

Judged by a jury of three award-winning, veteran editors, M.D Mahindapala, Ravindra Guruge and Lal Piyasena, the award for the best documentary was presented to Upali Gamlath for his film "Treacling down".

The second and third prizes were won by Jeevani Nadika Lenadora and Amila Galappaththi, for their documentaries titled, Gamaka Varuna and Jalabeethikawa respectively. Merit awards were given to Dinuka Chatuman Karunatilake of Leighton Park International school, Aruna Lanka Samanpriya (Kumbal Geethaya) and Sudarshana Bandara (Boomarangaya) while a special award was presented to Chinthaka Dharmadasa for his documentary titled "Insignificant".

Speaking to the Sunday Observer, Palitha Lakshman de Silva, Project Officer, SLETP, said the festival was supported by a grant from TVE Asia Pacific and Creata AV Productions.

The film festival and award ceremony, 2005, is yet one more step taken by SLETP to promote environmental, developmental, health and social issues through factual programmes, proving that much can be achieved through the power of the moving image to help us master the skills, and accept the discipline needed to save ourselves and our environment from total extinction.

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The sperm whale

The sperm whale belongs to the family Physeteridae and is the largest toothed whale or odontocete. Its name is derived from an organ within its head-the spermaceti organ, that old-time whalers used to believe produced sperm. Instead, the spermaceti organ contains high quality oil.

The most distinctive feature of this species is its square head, which can comprise as much as 1/3rd of its entire body length. The low slung lower jaw holds approximately 50 rounded teeth in two parallel rows, each of which weighs about a kilogram. Adult females generally reach about 11 m (36 ft) in length and weigh 15 tons, while the males are generally much larger, measuring up to 18m (60 ft) and weighing 45 tons.

Sperm whales are also known for having the largest noses of any living creature on earth. This organ is used in sound production, which is a fundamental part of all whales' lives. Sound is used for communication and in the location of food.

The deepest and longest diving of all cetaceans, the sperm whale can remain below the surface for around 90 minutes and dive to depths between 1,100 to 3,200m. Scientists believe that their need to dive this deep is a result of the predominant food they consume, the elusive giant squid.

Sperm whales are a cosmopolitan species that live in matrilineal groups comprising females (cows) and juvenile males, which are resident in equatorial waters. Young males leave at puberty to join a pod of medium-sized 'bachelors'. As they get older however, the males (bulls) become more anti-social and solitary and migrate to higher latitudes, where the quality of food is greater, and only return to the tropics for mating purposes.

Sperm whales have been documented extensively around Sri Lanka, particularly in the Trincomalee area, around the Basses and within the Gulf of Mannar. The documentation of calves (young sperm whales) during recent research expeditions may indicate that Sri Lankan waters are a healthy breeding ground for this species. Sri Lanka lies in the heart of the Indian Ocean Whaling Sanctuary, which was established in 1979 by the International Whaling Commission (IWC).

Thus, even though Sri Lanka is not a member of the IWC, marine mammals within its 200-mile EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone) are, in theory, protected. The cetaceans of Sri Lanka do however face a number of environmental threats, primarily, acoustic pollution from shipping activities along the coast, which will be exacerbated with the commencement of the sethusamudram shipping canal project (SSCP). The life of the whale is largely dependent on acoustic transmission underwater.

Elevated background noise levels caused by man-made noise may interfere with or prevent marine mammals from detecting sounds that are otherwise important to their survival. Unregulated whale watching is another growing threat around the island.

Over-exploitation of a species through such an industry could cause them to migrate to deep-water canyons further offshore causing them to become an inaccessible resource and subsequently lower the survival of these species. Habitat degradation, which is one of the largest threats to species survival worldwide, is another problem that will increase with the commencement of the SSCP.

This species has been classified as vulnerable in the 2003 IUCN (World Conservation Union) Redlist and is listed under Appendix 1 of CITES (Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species). A species is considered vulnerable when it is not critically endangered or endangered but is facing a high risk of extinction in the wild in the medium-term future.

However, the local status of the sperm whale has never been assessed, emphasising the need for caution in any activities related to this species, and the importance of further studies on their population sizes, structures and life histories.

Courtesy: IUCN - The World Conservation Union, Colombo.

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