The Sundarbans is the largest single tract mangrove forest and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Bangladesh is planning to build the Rampal coal-fired power plant there. If built, the coal power plant will be the country’s largest. It will be built by the Indian company NTPC Ltd. To operate, 4.72 million tons of coal per year will have to be imported (mainly from Australia, South-Africa and Indonesia). The coal will have to be shipped for 40 kilometers on the Pasur river, which flows through the Sundarbans.

Besides being a huge GHG emitting project, the coal power plant threatens the unique biodiversity and ecosystem of the Sundarbans as well as the livelihoods of million local people. In this context, UNESCO has recently asked Bangladesh to abandon the project. People in Bangladesh have organised and are tirelessly opposing this project. On November 26th, a protest was organised in the capital city that gathered about 15,000 people.

They are now asking for international solidarity to observe a Global Day of Protest on January 7, 2017 to raise collective voice to #SaveSundarbans and #StopRampal. You can help make our movement stronger and our voices heard louder.

 

Actions You Can Take

You can use the social media toolkit to Tweet and post Facebook posts from your own and organisation’s social media accounts using the hashtags #SaveSundarbans #StopRampal and #EndCoal. You can also share and upload videos and articles. Please don’t forget to tag @apwld on Twitter and apwld.ngo on Facebook.

You can also download our infographics kit and use it for making posters and placards. You can also take a photo holding them and share those images on social media using the hashtags #SaveSundarbans #StopRampal and #EndCoal.

Also, please register for our Thunderclap campaign that will simultaneously post messages to your social media on 7th January, 2017.

 

Other actions

You can take other actions – form a human chain, protest outside a Bangladesh or Indian Embassy in your country, send letters to both embassies and register your protest.

APWLD could provide you with a small financial support to organise your action. For those interested, please write to Camille (camille@apwld.org) and Betty (betty@apwld.org).

This solidarity mobilisation could also help highlighting your own issues, denouncing an extractive model of development failing to meet the needs of the most marginalised and, in particular, women in the Global South.

May 2017 be the year of hope, change and movement building!