Video: I hope to stay - climate change in Bangladesh

A film about ActionAid's support to a climate adaptation project in the poor and densely populated delta area in Bangladesh which will be hit hard by global warming and climate change.

Video produced by Rasmus Holm, MS ActionAid Nepal

 

Climate change will hit Bangladesh hard. With a conservative estimate, the sea level rise of 45 cm in the next 40 years will cause a loss of 15,668 square kms of land. This means 5.5 million people will have to migrate to higher grounds, in what is already one of the most densely populated areas of the world.

It is the population in the river delta area which are most vulnerable to these changes. In the small village of Charipara, Asiya Begum is wondering why they did not have rain for 5 months the way they used to. Her village has already experienced loss of land. In the last 10 years the river engulfed almost 1 square km of land displacing 100 families from neighbouring Nayakate village, most of who are now living in Charipara.

In this threatned delta area, ActionAid Bangladesh cooperates with local communities in adapting to climate change. In August 2008, ActionAid Bangladesh started a climate change adaptation programme with support from Danida. One of the main focuses was to increase the resilience of livelihood and adaptive capacity amongst people in selected villages.

The approach is to help communities identify and address their problems and possible solutions themselves. In Charipara they decided to to try out new varieties of seeds and farming methods to get better yield from the same land. Furthermore, they wanted to repair the sluice gate in the embankment to stop the saline water enter into the fields.

Asiya Begum volunteered to be part of the experiment...