The silent climate migration on Bangladesh's unforgiving high altitudes

In the past decade, Bangladesh has often featured in the international news cycle mainly for its high-end clothing manufacturing, the influx of Rohingya refugees and a series of factory fires. Another compelling issue that poses a severe threat to the country is climate change — and not much attention has been paid to it. 

While rural and coastal areas have already borne the brunt of floods and cyclones, climate change has wreaked havoc on the country's high-altitude tribal populations, too. 

On the morning of November 16 last year, Kunjang Tripura, a 31-year-old tribal from the Raing Khaing valley of the Chittagong Hill Tracts in southern Bangladesh, described the ordeal of living in the unforgiving habitat that has grown increasingly hostile over the years due to the climate change crisis. 

"I can't read the hills anymore," Kunjang told TRT World, as he spoke in his tribal language, which was translated to this correspondent by a local guide. 

“Strange things have been happening in the hills for the last couple of years. We prepared the hills for Jhum (slash-and-burn farming) but lack of timely rains made it a futile practice. The yield that we had received was so poor that we couldn't even gather the ‘khajna’ (tax) for the karbari (village head) and Raja (tribe king)”.

Bangladesh has around two million tribal people and at least 20 percent of them have become victims of climate change-related disasters. 

Long spells of droughts, receding groundwater levels and soil erosion are one of the consequences of climate change that tribals like Kunjang are facing. In the past two decades, he has left behind many lives, changing homes from one valley to another and going deeper into the woods.  

His ancestral village is Pranzog Para, which is about a four hour mountain hike from Ruma Bazar in southeastern Bangladesh. The drought pushed him out of the village along with his family of eight members about eight years ago and he settled in Dhupanichara Para, a 10 hour hike from Ruma Bazar. The drought followed him there, too. He left the village last year and went further east, deep into the forests of Sinog Hills in the Raing Khaing valley. The back-to-back displacements have brought him closer to a 'special' border named Tinmukh between Bangladesh, India and Myanmar.  

Living a 15-minute trek away from the Tinmukh border means losing access to Ruma Bazar, where he previously sold his bamboo yield.  

“Ruma Bazar is just a bit too far for me now, especially when I have to walk for more than 20 hours with these heavy bamboos along the narrow mountain trails of some 3,000ft high hills,” said Kunjang.  

The nearest market is now in India's northeastern state Mizoram, which is just a three-hour hike. He can also access Myanmar's Arakan market, which is five hours walk from his village. 

Kunzang explained that circumstances in the forest are such that he has stopped growing crops.  

“We can’t even hunt any animals as there are very few left because of the dried-out water resources. We now prefer to cut bamboo and cane from the jungle and sell those to the markets,” he said.

Breaking century's old customs

Kunjang is not alone in this remote part of Chittagong Hill Tracts. Ejis Bom is a resident of Passingpara, the country's highest human settlement at about 2,700ft. He said ‘things’ are changing inside the deep hills of Bandarban. 

“A good number of hills are not producing crops anymore. The water sources around which hill people usually establish their settlements remain dry even in the monsoon. We are forced to leave our old villages and migrate to other places to establish new ones,” said Ejis.

In the last ten years, nine new villages have been established in the Chimbuk range alone, which comprises Raing Khaing valley, while five settlements came up in the nearby Sippi forest range. From local estimates, it's an unusual demographic change as prior to the decade of 2010-2020, only one village would be added within a span of eight years. 

Few places to go

It is however not the population that forces them to migrate - in fact the population rate is lower than before in Bandarban. Rather it’s the lack of water, uncultivable hills and other consequences of climate change that force them into this.

Sujon Tripura, popularly known as ‘Sujon Master’ amongst local tribals, lives in Pranzog Para, about a 14 hour hike from Kunzang’s residence. He is involved with several non-profits working in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.

“I, with the help of an NGO forum have identified more than 110 ‘jiri’ (small water streams next to which a tribal village is normally established), which have either dried out or changed their course,” said Sujon. 

“Also, the hills become infertile only after five or six crop yields, which also forces the people to migrate from one Para to another so that they can get new hills for cultivation”. 

Many among the tribal population have moved to towns and urban areas, such as Ruma Bazar, Thanchi Bazar, or to the outskirts of Bandarban Sadar where they live in congested slums and earn a living through menial labour. 

“A good number of people even migrated to further East in Mizoram or Arakan as there they have found work in timber factories,” explained Sujon. 

What lies beneath?

Dr Saleemul Huq, who heads the International Centre for Climate Change and Development, has travelled extensively across the Chittagong Hill Tracts and researched the effects of climate change on tribal populations. 

“The cultivation period of a particular crop has lessened in the Chittagong Hill Tracts over the years. This is actually a result of global climate change. The problem is neither the government nor the NGOs. No one focuses on developing a new variety of high yielding crops for the ‘Jhum’ cultivation, which can withstand the factors of water shortage and changing monsoon climate,” said Dr Huq. 

“The years-old practices in the area have served the hill people for long when the successive cultivation period was 12 years or longer, now with the climate change the period is less than five years. As a result, soil fertility is decreasing and reversible degradation of the environment is taking place.”