Why Rationale of Rohingya Repatriation is an Ecological One?

The Rohingya refugee has been transformed into a protracted one, due to the failure of the international community in ensuring the sustainable solution for Rohingya refugees as well as due to stubborn posture of the Myanmar army that disavows Rohingya as the citizen of Bangladesh. However, the prolonged habitation of Rohingya is downright unsustainable, and is set to trigger a series of challenges to Bangladesh and the region. While much has harped on the security challenges emanating from the Rohingya camps, the ecological challenges induced by the Rohingya crisis has left unaddressed. This is notwithstanding the fact that the ecological dilemma will generate long-term challenges for Bangladesh.

When the Myanmar army unleashed its brutal persecution on Rohingyas-- Bangladesh demonstrated unprecedented generosity by providing Rohingya with sanctuary. Being an already overpopulated country, with one of the highest population density of the world, Bangladesh however welcomed the Rohingyas with admirable benevolence.

Due to the sheer number of the refugee influx in Bangladesh--which is estimated at 700000 refugees-- Bangladesh was compelled to obliterate the forest lands and hill tracts of Teknaf to shelter the wretched Rohingyas. Thus, the Teknaf region had been transformed from lush green landscape to a deserted arena with refugees teeming the area.

In order to accommodate the helpless Rohingya, approximately 6000 acres of forest land had to be obliterated. This swift destruction of forest land disrupts the ecological equilibrium of the region and disturbs the environment balance.

The forest area was a sanctuary of wildlife habitat. However, indiscriminate deforestation for supplying the fuel wood and shelters has hampered the wildlife of the region and accentuated human-wildlife conflict. Besides, the decimation of forests magnifies the threat of soil erosion, crop sustainability and flood.

Moreover , significant community and national forestry areas have been degraded, which has endangered the livelihoods of people who depend on forestry projects. Furthermore, critical biodiversity sites, including Teknaf Wildlife Sanctuary, Himchari National Park and Inani Protected Area have been endangered and exposed to exploitation for timber and other forest products. The Teknaf Sanctuary preserved considerable Bangladesh's Asian elephants and other endangered species, however with the rampant destruction of the forests, this has amplified the risk of human-wildlife contact.

The environmental repercussions triggered due to the refugee movement can be traced back to the beginning of the Rohingya refugee influx to Bangladesh in the early 1990s. However, with the astronomical influx of refugees in 2017, the environment has borne the brunt of the refugee crisis.

 This has a series of ramifications for Bangladesh. Firstly, the protracted refugee crisis will worsen the environment in the southern region of the country, which will compound Bangladesh's climate change predicament. Secondly, considering the scarcity of resource in the region--which will further plummet due to environmentally unsustainable extraction and exploitation of nature--the protracted refugee crisis will generate deep antagonism between Rohingyas and host-communities due to resource competition, which will further stoke the lingering disenchantment of host communities. Thirdly, a protracted refugee crisis in the resource scarce region, will impel the refugees to migrate to other region of Bangladesh, and as the dissatisfaction snowballs, it will be strenuous for Bangladesh to retard the refugee dispersion towards the broader region, thus accentuating the overall crisis.

It will be increasingly challenging for Bangladesh to offer fuel for the cooking in the camp, given the raging international energy crisis that has sent shockwaves to energy markets across the world, worsening the plight of common people. Rohingyas demand for the fuel wood was met with the timber. However, with the gargantuan refugee influx in Bangladesh--providing sustenance to refugees will require widespread deforestation and destruction of forests, with deleterious consequences for the environment of Bangladesh. Later, Liquified Natural Gas(LNG) was introduced  as an energy source. However, with the international LNG price escalating, which has triggered soaring energy prices across the world, it will not be viable to provide LNG to Rohingya for cooking. Thus, the destruction of the forestlands and illicit smuggling of timber will  resurface again.

This crisis is in the context of diminishing international assistance to Bangladesh, that has increased pressures on Bangladesh to provide assistance to Rohingya to sustain their livelihood, despite the fact that Bangladesh is also reeling from economic challenges induced by Ukraine-Russia war and Global Value Chain(GVC) disruption. This will make it difficult for Bangladesh to sustain Rohingyas with the country's shrinking fiscal space.

Besides, although economic costs incurred on Bangladesh as a result of the Rohingya crisis haven't been calculated, the ecological crisis will further inflict economic costs on Bangladesh. However, the global commitment in redressing climate costs hasn't made much headway, as despite the arrangement of COP and other environment summits and activism, the international commitment to climate change adaptation and mitigation, remain dismal. This will compound the environmental challenges for Bangladesh, a country that is regarded as one of the most susceptible to climate change.

Moreover, the ecological impacts of the Rohingya refugee crisis will make the crisis into an endless morass--through irrevocable environmental damage, unsustainable resource exploitation and extraction, climate-change induced resource competition and fraught host-community and refugee. This will compound the challenges for the host community and worsening living conditions will generate dissatisfaction among refugees--lingering the crisis for an unforeseeable future. The ecological explanation proves the unsustainability of the protracted inhabitation in Bangladesh. Thus, in order to avert a full-blown ecological crisis--the world community needs to consider the ecological implication of the Rohingya crisis and ought to seek sustainable solutions to the refugee crisis.

Writer: Mehjabin Maliha Hossain

Mehjabin Maliha Hossain, is an international affairs researcher and pursuing her doctoral studies at National University of Singapore (NUS).

×