GAFFARGAON (Bangladesh): Surrounded by half-a-dozen brick-manufacturing factories spewing out brown smoky haze, Veroil village in this subdistrict 70 kilometres north of Dhaka, is far from one of a kind in Bangladesh.

There are more than 10,000 brick-manufacturing plants across this South Asian country, and not surprisingly non-government organisations (NGOs) say that respiratory problems, particularly those affecting children, are found where brick kilns and heavy-industry dot the landscape.

According to the Bangladesh Brick Manufacturing Association, between 3.5 and 4 billion bricks are manufactured annually to meet the demand of developers in Dhaka’s ever expanding city and across the nation.

The nation’s smoking chimneys are also slowly destroying the greenery in urban and rural areas.

Moazzem Hossain, research director with the non-government Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), expresses deep concern over the wanton use of natural resources for manufacturing bricks. “The present system of brick burning is polluting air, posing a threat to public health and at the same time contributing to the depletion of our scant forest resources,” he said.

“Surprisingly, a majority of people in our country are not at all aware of the adverse impact of the brickfields on public health and the environment,” added another activist, who requested anonymity.

Critics say that money and influence are heavily involved in the brick-making business, and that means environmental laws controlling brick burning are flouted on a regular basis.

According to the Brick Burning Control Act, a maximum area of 0.6 hectares can be used to operate a brickfield, but the overwhelming majority of owners have brickfields spread across five to six times the legal amount. Also it is mandatory to install a minimum 15.5 metre chimney wy with filters in every kiln to control smoke emissions, but these laws too are flouted regularly.

Manufacturers normally use chimneys that are only some 3 to 4.65 metres high. These send poisonous vapours, dust, as well as carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, fluorine and lead, into the atmosphere at a far lower level than is considered safe. Children and the elderly are the worst affected.

Despite a 1990 land ministry decree requiring that brickfields only be set up on barren and fallow land, most businesses in the countryside build their plants on fertile land close to human settlements.

Some locals of Gaffargaon said brick manufacturers buy trees from poor villagers through their agents in violation of the Brick Burning Act, which banned the use of firewood for baking bricks.

According to environment department’s estimates, the manufacture of one million bricks consumes about 430 metric tonnes of wood fuel. Driven by poverty, marginal farmers fell trees and sell logs to the agents to clear old debts and to buy food and other necessities.

According to environment ministry sources, the district administration is supposed to issue interested brickfield operators a license — subject to approval by the environment department — but many operate without permission from the two government agencies anyway.

The environment ministry source said this is possible due to underhanded deals with dishonest officials from the two government departments.

“It seems that practical application of any law is too loose in Bangladesh, and this encourages brickfield owners to fell trees and burn logs even more. As a result, obviously brickfields are acting as a serious agent of deforestation in Bangladesh,” said an activist.

According to the Bangladesh Forest Research Institute (BFRI), on average 8,000 hectares of reserve forest are deforested annually. Bangladesh’s area of reserve forest stands at about 2 million hectares.

Forest should cover 25 percent of the total area of a country, but in Bangladesh forest range constitutes only nine percent of the total, according to BFRI.

“Gradual shrinkage of arable and forest lands, if unchecked right now, would ultimately land Bangladesh into terrible economic turmoil,” said Masudul Huq, a teacher at a local college.

Cultivable land in Bangladesh has shrunk by more than 1.08 million hectares during the last 13 years, due to population growth, urbanisation, industrialisation and the acquisition of land by different official agencies, sources at the land ministry said.

Dr Wahiduddin Mahmud warns that Bangladesh faced a serious environmental crisis if forest depletion continues at the present rate and that laws alone are not enough to curb environmental degradation. “It will require a social movement involving the community and various non- government organisations,” he said.

Last month, Minister for the Forest and the Environment Shahjahan Siraj told a delegation of brick manufacturers that the government would encourage the production of concrete blocks with sand and cement, and discourage indigenous methods of using wood and coal to make bricks. The new kind of brick or concrete block could be made in 24 hours, and brick manufacturing using clay and wood-fire would be prohibited after 5 years, he said.

But skeptics point to the government’s poor record in implementing environmental reforms, adding that it would also need to make plans for the nearly two million people across the country employed in the brick manufacturing industry. —Dawn/InterPress News Service.