Introduction
In September 2015, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, H.E. Ms. Sheikh Hasina, was recognized as winner of the Champions of the Earth award in the Policy Leadership category. Outside of her impressive rise to power from her position as the leader of the opposition Awami League party and her emphasis on democracy, human rights, and nonviolence, Prime Minister Hasina has been an adamant advocate the effect of climate change on Bangladesh. With a strong belief that investing climate change is conducive to achieving social and economic development, Prime Minister Hasina has insured that Bangladesh is one of the first developing countries to develop a climate change strategy, even though the country only produces 0.3% of global emissions. This began with the progressive Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan of 2009, which made Bangladesh the first developing country to develop such an explicit and coordinated action plan. This ultimately led to the development of Bangladesh’s own Climate Change Trust Fund supported by US $300 million of domestic resources from 2009-2012. In addition, the Bangladesh Constitution, under Prime Minister Hasina’s leadership, was amended in 2011 to include a constitutional directive to the State to protect the environment and natural resources. Currently, the government earmarks 6-7% of its annual budget, approximating to US $1 billion, for climate change adaptation, with only 25% of this budget coming from international donors. A Climate Change Fiscal Framework is also being framed in order to allow the government to track the demand and supply of climate change funds. With Prime Minister Hasina’s initiative, the forestry policies instated have provided a natural barrier from extreme weather, and the country’s forests cover has increased by almost 10%.
Although Bangladesh has been able to make great strides with Prime Minister Hasina’s initiatives within one of the most prevalent environmental issues, it is tragically ironic that there is yet another, if not larger, looming beast that has yet to be dealt with effectively: groundwater arsenic contamination. For the past 20 years, the matter has only grown out of proportion and has been exacerbated by a lack of well enforced government intervention and support. Since Bangladesh’s emergence as a sovereign nation, the government and international donors soon noticed the potential for tapping into groundwater sources of cleaner water, compared to the surface water tainted with microbial contamination. After initially promoting the proliferation of tubewells as a source for drinking water, not much was understood about Bangladesh’s shallow groundwater sources and its arsenic levels, thus, in combination with a lack of government regulation, this caused the concentration of arsenic to skyrocket. Today, around 43,000 people die each year from arsenic-related illness, and it is even estimated that “1-5 million of the 90 million children estimated to be born between 2000 and 2030 will eventually die due to exposure to arsenic in drinking water”. But this is not just a Bangladeshi phenomenon.
Arsenic contamination of water is a widespread affliction that affects many different parts of our world. Ranging from the developed and powerful nations, including the United States, to developing countries, arsenic contamination has affected numerous different populations across the world and proven to be extremely injurious to the health of humans. Arsenic exposure has many dermal, gastrointestinal, neurological, and cardiovascular effects, some of which include hemorrhagic gastroenteritis, skin, lung, and bladder cancer, and peripheral neuropathy (Fig. 1). The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency both classified and established inorganic arsenic as a known human carcinogen. This carcinogenic inorganic arsenic compound is what is contaminating water sources across the world, as compared to the less harmful organic arsenic compounds that are commonly found in seafood. (FIG 1 – body diagram)
The bodies of water that are most affected by arsenic contamination are groundwater sources. Although the introduction of arsenic into these sources of water can occur naturally due to its presence in surrounding bedrock, especially in areas of West Bengal and China, this arsenic contamination can be exacerbated through numerous human activities. These include industrial activities of mining, smelting, coal-fired power plants, and the environmental effects of various agricultural pesticides used for wood preservation.
Although many countries are affected by arsenic water contamination, including Argentina, China, Chile, Mexico, India, and the United States of America, Bangladesh is one important example of a country affected by chronic arsenic exposure. Since the early 2000s, around 35 to 77 million of its people have been chronically exposed to dangerously high levels of arsenic within water sources. This is due to the extremely high percentage of Bangladesh’s population that depends on tube wells to access groundwater sources, rather than ingest the pathogen-contaminated surface water sources. In rural areas, over 97% of the rural population depends on such groundwater sources, which has resulted in a large-scale exposure to high arsenic levels due to the lack of access to clean water. Thus, in 2009, 65 million people were surveyed for national quality of water and were found to be exposed to concentrations above the national standard of 50 parts per billion (ppb) and the World Health Organization’s international standard of 10 ppb. These concentrations were found to reach extremely high and dangerous concentrations of arsenic within the water, reaching as high as 400 ppb (Fig. 2).
To address this issue, the Bangladeshi government broadcasted and implemented many grandiose plans of government wells, regular check-ups, constant monitoring, and installation of safe, potable water sources, but these all ultimately failed due to many different factors, specifically societal and political predicaments. Ultimately, the alarming predicament of arsenic contamination in Bangladesh has many underlying aggravators, including political and social factors, and addressing the impact of these factors can help shed more light on the issue of this mass poisoning and help initiate involved and focused efforts, similar to the initiatives implemented for climate change.
Bangladesh History
In 1947, the British colonial rule over India ended, and East Bengal and Sylhet came to independence as the eastern part of the Muslim state of Pakistan. From its establishment, East Pakistan was very wary of its richer, more powerful, but less populous counterpart of West Pakistan, established 1,600 km across the vast Indian territory. With conflicting ideas of political control, language, and economic policy, in 1949, the Awami League was established in East Pakistan to campaign for autonomy.