Climate

Watch: the struggle for water in the Chittagong Hill Tracts

With erratic rainfall, due to climate change, and deforestation, the search for water becomes increasingly difficult for the indigenous population of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, especially for women

The Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh, a mountainous region inhabited by an indigenous population that has a strikingly different lifestyle than those in the Bangladeshi plains, is increasingly facing water shortages. Locals ascribe the changes to various reasons, from deforestation, to inward migration, to low and erratic rainfall, and even their own way of farming – which involves felling trees and clearing land by burning the lower vegetation.

As the water bodies diminish, the search for water takes ever longer, and as women and children are assigned the task, they are the main characters in this story of the vanishing water of the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Please see this video to hear them speak of their challenges.