A rising tide
We travel by car and speedboat to the island of Kutubdia in the Bay of Bengal. It’s a bumpy 15-minute ride in the back of a jalopy from the ferry ghat into town, with palms and banana trees waving from the roadside and rickshaw wallahs cycling past. The impression is one of lushness, tranquillity and purpose yet, beyond the façade, saltpans that were once rice paddies stretch towards the sea, revealing the harshness of life in a Bangladeshi village and the impact of rising sea levels on this community.
I’ve come to the island with Bangladeshi friends to research the impact of climate change on this community of fishermen and farmers. You see, Bangladesh — a country at sea level with three main rivers but a total of over 700 crisscrossing the territory — is the canary in the coalmine when it comes to climate change. In any given year, Bangladesh will experience water shortages during the dry winter months, flooding during the monsoon and cyclones of varying intensity at different times of the year.
Populations along the Bay of Bengal are especially vulnerable. The cyclone of April 1991 smashed these communities with 250km/h winds and 6m waves, killing more than 150,000 people and leaving
