Welcome to the website of Bangladesh Environment Network (BEN)!
We need your participation in our common struggle to protect Bangladesh and the global environment.
As Bangladesh industrializes, its environment is experiencing serious deterioration. Its rivers and other surface water bodies are getting encroached and polluted. Its forests are shrinking. Its land is getting toxic. Bio-diversity is disappearing and open space is vanishing. Its once pristine villages are getting polluted and its cities are becoming inhabitable.
Bangladesh Environment Network (BEN) has been set up in 1998 to mobilize the efforts and resources of non-resident Bangladeshis (NRBs) and their international friends to help Bangladesh confront its environmental problems. It also participates actively in the international struggle for protection of the global environment.
BEN works inside Bangladesh in partnership with Bangladesh Poribesh Andolon (BAPA) [Bangladesh Environment Movement], a civic organization formed in 2000 to unite pro-environment organizations and individuals of Bangladesh. BEN is a founding member-organization of BAPA.
Working together, BAPA, BEN, and other pro-environment forces of Bangladesh have been successful in bringing about several positive changes in the country’s environment. Among these are: introduction of non-leaded gasoline, removal of the two-stroke vehicles from the streets of the major cities; re-imposition of the ban on the use of plastic bags; formation by the government of an inter-ministerial Task Force for protection of rivers; adoption of new building rules requiring more open space to be left open. While these steps have led to some improvements, overall the environment in Bangladesh however continues to deteriorate.
Urgent steps are therefore necessary to protect Bangladesh’s environment. Though the government bears the primary responsibility, all Bangladeshis–living both inside and outside the country—and their international friends need to join the effort. Through about two decades of work, BEN has established a proven record of a sustained, positive, and effective role in protecting Bangladesh’s environment. Internationally, BEN has an active record of participation in the struggle for protection of the global environment, in particular, in the struggle against climate change.
Glad that you have come to our website. Please take a little time and browse through it! We hope that reading and seeing what we present here will encourage you, and will decide to join BEN and its efforts. To join BEN, please subscribe to our newsletter using the form on the right.
Dr. Dipen Bhattacharya, is an astrophysicist and an associate professor of physics and astronomy at Moreno Valley College and a research physicist at UC Riverside. He is a best-selling science fiction author in his native Bangladesh.
