Media role vital to mitigate climate change impacts

The role of print and electronic media is very important towards protecting Rajshahi region, particularly the vast barind tract, from the adverse impact of climate change.

The adverse impact of climate change is detrimental to the living and livelihood conditions of the people in general so emphasis should be given to creating mass awareness on how to adapt to the consequences of climate change collectively.

Media personnel and development activists came up with the observation while addressing a roundtable meeting titled “Role of Mass-media to face climate change” at Hotel Warisan in the city on Sunday.

On behalf of its project titled “Advancing Women’s Right of Access to Information in Bangladesh”, the Association for Community Development (ACD) organised the meeting supported by the Carter Centre.

ACD Programme Manager Monirul Islam and Information Friend Sabrina Naz from the Carter Center addressed the meeting as resource persons disseminating their expertise on the issue moderated by Project Coordinator Subrata Kumar Paul.

Editor of Daily Sonar Desh Akbraul Hassan Millat and journalists Anwar Ali, Muhammad Anisuzzaman, Kazi Nazmul Islam and Asim Kumar Sarker also spoke on the occasion.

They viewed that adverse impacts of climate change have triggered a recurrence of natural calamities in the region posing a serious threat to the farming of winter crops including vegetables and the living conditions of farmers’ communities in the region.

The duration of winter along with its intensity has changed remarkably during the last couple of years which is detrimental to winter crop farming.

Time-befitting measures need to be adopted urgently to boost agricultural production for ensuring food security amid the adverse impacts of climatic changes.

The discussants unanimously viewed that the media can supplement the process of attaining the capability of disaster management and climate change adaptation by depicting the exact extent of climate change impact.

Media can draw the attention of the policymakers to the plights of the climate change victims in the region as climate change has been pushing the living and livelihood conditions of the people into vulnerable conditions.

Akbarul Hassan Millat said climate change links most of the livelihood, ecosystem and biodiversity-related issues. He adds that Bangladesh should be more proactive to protect its people from the adverse impact of climate change which has become a big challenge at present.