Feb. 12 marks Bangladesh’s first national election poll since the 2024 mass uprising and the consequent fall of the Awami League government after 15 years in power, a period its political opponents blame for policies that accelerated environmental degradation, among other faults. In the lead up to the 13th Jatiya Sangsad (National Parliament) Election, there were expectations that the political parties that led the uprising would come up with conservation-based and climate change-focused policies to make up for the decade-long environmental losses. In their election manifestos, the major opposition parties have outlined mass tree plantation, expectation for electricity from renewables, pollution control, industrialization outside wildlife zones, climate diplomacy and resilient agriculture. However, conservation experts express their frustration with these manifestos, saying that the policy documents lack “merit” and a “realistic implementation plan.” “The environmental protection and climate change mitigation plans, mentioned in the manifestos, are not clear to us,” Arafat Rahman, general secretary of the Bangladesh Biodiversity Conservation Federation’s (BBCF), an umbrella organization uniting several environmental and conservation organizations, tells Mongabay. On Feb. 6, BBCF hosted a dialogue in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka. The keynote of the dialogue read that Bangladesh has failed to protect the environment despite having laws and regulatory bodies, as the political commitment was weak and institutional accountability was absent. The organization thus called on political parties to include clear, understandable and enforceable commitments in their election manifestos to address the lapses in environmental and biodiversity conservation. Bangladesh Biodiversity Conservation Federation (BBCF) recently organized a national dialogue…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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