INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Asadul Islam peers into his pond in south-west Bangladesh and watches as hundreds of caged crabs float past beneath him
He is looking for those that have shed their hard shell
When he finds one, he has a short window to freeze it and send it off for sale to westerners with a taste for soft-shelled crabs.He hopes
this new business venture will provide the wealth that eluded his father
But from the 1980s, rising seas and storm surges began pushing saltwater over the banks of tidal rivers and ruining their crops
ponds with black tiger prawn fry.Backed by the Bangladeshi government, which saw tiger prawns, or shrimp as they are generally known, as a
lucrative export opportunity, and development organisations that heralded the transition from paddy to pond as a clever climate-change
adaptation, more than 275,000 hectares (680,000 acres) have been flooded, mostly in the south-west, for intensive aquaculture.map of
Bangladesh showing Gabura If farmers could not keep seawater from poisoning their fields, they could use it to grow something else
It was a way to adapt, and for a while it worked
has been decades of environmental degradation and sometimes violent conflict, showing how some adaptations can make people more, not less,
School of Economics, and author of Threatening Dystopias: The Global Politics of Climate Change Adaptation in Bangladesh
Photograph: Stephen Robert MillerBangladesh faces rising seas, intensifying cyclones, extensive flooding and extreme heat, and while the
country struggles to protect itself from the effects of the climate crisis, its south-west region is reeling from the unintended
perched north of the Bay of Bengal and the dense Sundarbans mangrove forest
After Cyclone Amphan made landfall here in May 2020, parts of the island sat underwater for most of the next 18 months.Today, people are
shoring up their mud houses, sealing their dinghies with fresh black tar and readying for another cyclone season
in Bangladesh before intensifying cyclones struck
Photograph: Abir Abdullah/EPAIn the last three decades, more than two-thirds of its farmable land has become a silver desert of saline
and can destroy a crop within a week.To compensate for losses, farmers often overstock ponds, but the strategy is unsustainable
from intensive shrimp farming have incubated conflict in impoverished rural communities
Crop farmers complain that brackish water leaking from shrimp ponds poisons their fields
Environmentalists say that feed and fertilisers damage local biodiversity
fertility is used to raise a product prioritised for export.We started with 500 shrimp but then had to increase to 1,000, and then 3,000
although cyclones and relentless tides deserve much of the blame, so does the proliferation of brackish aquaculture.Only one well on Gabura
is deep enough to bring up fresh water, so locals depend on six surface pools that collect rainwater for drinking, cleaning and bathing
According to a government study from 2019, three of those pools were used for aquaculture, and just one provided safe drinking water.The
freshwater crisis has taken an outsize toll on women, intensifying existing gender inequalities
In areas with high salinity, women and adolescent girls travel commonly travel 3.5 miles a day in search of drinking water for their
families.Catching crabs near Satkhira, Bangladesh
Aquaculture is proving good for short-term profits but disastrous for the future
Photograph: Probal Rashid/LightRocket/GettyAnyone hoping to address these issues must contend with the money that aquaculture brings to a
country that is developing aggressively
In the year before the Covid pandemic severed global supply lines, Bangladesh exported 30,000 tonnes of shrimp worth nearly $350m
Paprocki, despite the tensions it has created, and findings that it has had little impact on poverty
One of the worst incidents, says Topon Gualdar, a rice and vegetable farmer in a village 40 miles north of Gabura, happened in 1990 when a
the Satkhira district of Bangladesh
Photograph: Getty ImagesSimilar uprisings have occurred elsewhere, but on Gabura, where holes and pipes that suck brackish water through
devlopment board engineer said that when the embankment is rebuilt, shrimp farming in Gabura will be limited to a designated area to avoid
However, investigations by Transparency International Bangladesh, an anti-corruption organisation, found that water board officials and
local politicians often resolve embankment-cutting cases in favour of shrimp farmers
In this environment, industries that generate significant economic activity take on a shine, even if their problems are well
otherwise adapt to climate change, Paprocki says.Rice fields in Bangladesh sit fallow after months of inundation by tidal water left them
He learned the business from a Japanese frozen seafood company that was seeking producers
It seemed like a smart move: crabs fetch a higher price than shrimp, and he was told they were less vulnerable to disease.Barring any more
global shutdowns, trade disruptions or environmental disasters, he says he is optimistic about the future, although business is off to a
He will stay up late, tending to the survivors, and will sell what he can in the morning.Riton Camille Quiah contributed translations into
English The article was produced in collaboration with the Food and Environment Reporting Network, a non-profit investigative news
This article first appeared/also appeared in theguardian.com
