Champa Rani Mollik from the coast
Humans and nature are interlinked in many ways. Natural resources dependent marginal people strive to sustain on relying various components around them.
Thirty- eight- years old Shahinur Rahman-a crab trader of Sakhipur village of Debhata upazila under Satkhira district in south-western coastal region of Bangladesh was facing trouble in transportation of crabs for extreme humid and hot due to climate change impacts.
To get rid of this problem, he came to a new idea, now he is putting chopped water-hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) a free-floating hydrophyte in between crabs in packaging as its long, spongy and bulbous stalks soak water and remains cool for several hours that allows him to transport crabs far away. In this way crabs inside the box remain alive and fresh for long hours. Now he is able to maintain quality as well as reduce crab mortality. These crabs enjoy a good market demand which enables Shahinur to garner a hefty profit. Now his innovation is being followed by local many crab traders in the areas.
In this way, from ancient time to till today, nature dependent marginal people have been managing, maintaining their livelihoods and solving their problems with local solutions.
Re-written by ABM Touhidul Alam